Executive Summary

Beginning in mid-2023, the Quincy Institute’s Better Order Project brought together more than 130 experts, scholars, and practitioners from over 40 countries, spanning the Global North and South and including all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, to collectively develop a package of proposals aimed at stabilizing an international security order in transition.

The impetus behind this initiative was simple. As the world transitions away from unipolarity, a dangerous competition over norms and rules is emerging that risks splitting the world into competing orders. Rather than a multipolar world, a multi-order world may emerge that pits the U.S.-led “rules-based international order” (RBIO) against rival arrangements, resulting in intensified zero-sum security competition.

We propose that the way forward is neither the promotion of the RBIO — whose “rules” are all too often vague — nor the advent of a rival order dominated by other great powers. Rather, for the sake of peace and stability and a fighting chance against transnational existential threats such as climate change and pandemics, we need enhanced norms and laws to rejuvenate an inclusive global order rooted in international law, multilateralism, and the ability of states to participate on an equal basis. 

Some fear that the transition away from unipolarity will be inherently unstable. Others welcome what they see as an opportunity to create a more equitable international order. Few, however, have prepared detailed reforms aimed at making the laws and norms of the future adequate and adjusted to the realities of post-unipolarity. 

This package of 20 proposals and reforms aims to fill the gap in a way that is advantageous to all — smaller states and middle powers along with the United States and other major powers: 

An improved U.N. Security Council

The U.N. Security Council should be made more representative and effective and, therefore, more legitimate. It should be expanded to 23 members, including three new permanent seats — one from Africa, Latin America, and Asia each — to be elected by the U.N. General Assembly. A new category of five semi-permanent members should also be created, drawn from an elected pool of 20 countries, to offer middle powers a more prominent role and make it easier for smaller countries to get elected. Moreover, to empower the General Assembly even further, a two-thirds majority should be given the right to overrule single vetoes unaccompanied by a second negative vote. Finally, an automatic U.N. Charter review should take place each quarter century to ensure regular opportunities to reform and upgrade the architecture of the international order. 

Tightening norms around the use of force

We propose new norms and pacts to strengthen jus in bello, including codifying the principle of proportionality in greater detail, charting international humanitarian law (IHL) in emerging technological domains, and placing stronger limits on providing military assistance to parties violating the laws of war. Jus ad bellum should also be tightened by further clarifying the instances in which states can legitimately invoke the right of self-defense. 

Avoiding nuclear war

Alongside conventional arms control and efforts to improve political relations between great powers, we propose new measures to reduce the likelihood of a nuclear clash, whether deliberate or accidental. These include moves toward de-alerting nuclear arsenals, commitments to avoid cyberattacks on nuclear command and control systems (NC3), limiting the degree to which artificial intelligence (AI) can be integrated into NC3, forging a multilateral no-first-use agreement, and mandating a recurring study on the effects of nuclear use to raise public awareness.

Rules of the road for economic sanctions

While the use of economic sanctions, including extraterritorial sanctions, is likely to grow over the next decades, there are currently few laws or norms regulating their use or impact. An International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision should determine the legality of extraterritorial financial sanctions to establish whether these are violations of state sovereignty or applications of domestic law. Moreover, we propose the adoption of new best practices, drawn conceptually from international humanitarian law, to minimize the impact of sanctions on civilian populations. An alternative path is for the United States and China to secure a bilateral “arms control-style” agreement to regulate their respective use of coercive economic measures, which can help inspire a broader, multilateral agreement.

Climate, peace, and security

We call for a U.N. General Assembly resolution that, while recognizing the complex and contingent linkages between climate and security, explicitly rejects military intervention in the internal affairs of states on the grounds of climate security. A new grouping of states — the Planetary 20 (P20) — should also be established to enable speedier action on issues lying at the nexus of climate and security. These should include the pioneering of a global compact on the resettlement of residents of small island developing states and the creation of a fund to empower regional organizations in the most climate-vulnerable areas of the planet.

A last line of defense against rogue AI

We propose the establishment of a new organization to serve as an emergency first response force for global AI threats and emergencies that no single country could adequately respond to on its own. While this organization will add to other efforts to prevent the dangers of rogue AI, its critical added value is the fail-safe measures it would establish in case preventive measures fail. The organization will monitor for global AI emergencies, prepare countries and private companies for how to best respond to AI emergencies, and coordinate the response to global AI emergencies, particularly rogue generative AI that has escaped or eluded built-in controls and regulation at the national and international level.

Buttressing order and stability in Europe and the Middle East

Conflicts currently raging in Europe and the Middle East risk triggering and deepening global instability. We call for several measures to strengthen order in these regions. In Europe, we propose a crisis consultation mechanism to allow actors to game out crises in advance and reduce their negative impact should they erupt by providing a less public-facing setting for adjudicating competing norms. In the Middle East, we present a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state within three years, to be endorsed by the U.N. Security Council through a Chapter VII resolution. Moreover, we propose the establishment of a regional security architecture that would include Israel once the de-occupation of Palestinian lands has occurred.

These proposals are aimed at beginning a discussion over what the international community needs to do to bring a modicum of stability to an increasingly post-unipolar world. They are not a panacea. But if pursued, they would build upon the foundations of the existing order and help to avoid some of the greatest perils we face, creating a better international order in the process.