A rules-based order - but who makes the rules?

Irish Examiner

22-07-2025

Earlier this month the Taoiseach Micheál Martin made a four-day trip to Japan to strengthen bi-lateral ties between the two countries.
During a speech at the opening of the new Ireland House in Tokyo the Taoiseach said: 'The Ireland-Japan relationship is built on a solid foundation of shared and longstanding commitment to the rules-based international order. We share a vision for a future of peace and prosperity for all, built through international co-operation, democratic values and peaceful resolution of disputes.'
He went on to note that 'these shared values were already evident in 1974, the year that Ireland established its first embassy here in Tokyo. In that year, Ireland's former minister for foreign affairs, Seán MacBride, and the former Prime Minister of Japan, Eisaku Satō, shared that year's Nobel Peace Prize for their work on disarmament.'
To underline the importance of Ireland-Japan collaboration on disarmament the Taoiseach also visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park during his trip. There he met with hibakusha, survivors of the US's atomic bomb attacks.
The Taoiseach spoke to journalists about the harrowing testimony he heard from Teruko Yakata, who was eight years old when the bomb was dropped on her hometown, and about the legacy of trauma still suffered by Yakata and other survivors. As he was leaving Hiroshima Mr Martin was asked if he believed the world was a more dangerous now than in 1945.
'I believe it is,' he answered, 'it is in a very dangerous place.'
The Taoiseach was right to highlight Ireland's proud tradition of international leadership on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. This is a particularly important history to underline whilst visiting Japan, which remains the only country to have suffered attack with nuclear weapons.
The United Nations' landmark Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), signed in 1968, had its origins in the 1950s when then Fianna Fáil foreign minister Frank Aiken introduced the first of what became known as the 'Irish Resolutions'‌ which eventually led to the NPT. Aiken was the first to sign the NPT in 1968 in recognition of Ireland's crucial role in advancing the cause of disarmament.
The Taoiseach Micheál Martin was right to highlight Ireland's proud tradition of international leadership on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. File photo: GIS Press Office
Yet, at the very same time as the Taoiseach was in Japan promoting Ireland's commitment to international diplomacy and disarmament, he is leading a government that is trying to fundamentally re-orient Ireland's foreign policy away from disarmament and international peace building towards militarization and war-fighting alliances.
In doing so Mr Martin and his government are betraying the foreign policy achievements of Aiken and his own party, Fianna Fáil, but more importantly they are betraying the will and trust of the Irish people who remain deeply attached to active neutrality. Opinion polls consistently show a large majority of the Irish public support maintaining neutrality.
A poll conducted in January by Uplift found that 75% were in favour of maintaining neutrality. In April another poll, conducted by The Irish Times and Ipsos, found that 63% of people wanted to keep Ireland's neutrality as it is.
The Government's revolution in foreign affairs
In his speech to the Global Ireland Summit on May 6 this year the Taoiseach said that even in newly volatile geopolitical conditions 'Ireland will maintain its role as a strong advocate for the rules-based international order, with the UN at its centre.'
Yet, his government is actively undermining the UN in its quest to remove the Triple Lock, legislation that requires a UN mandate for more than 12 members of the Irish Defence Forces to be deployed overseas. The government justify this change on the basis of false claims that Russia and China enjoy a veto over Irish peace-keeping missions in the UN Security Council.
It is not only the UN Security Council that can authorize peace-keeping missions. File picture: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
This is not true because it is not only the UN Security Council that can authorize peace-keeping missions. The UN General Assembly also has the power to do so.
Further, this is a hypothetical. China alone has exercised such a veto, and then only once regarding the extension of an existing UN peace-keeping mission. That was in 1999, before the Triple Lock existed.
Why is the government making these false claims? Removing the need for a UN mandate on deploying Irish Defence Forces personnel overseas would allow this government - and any future Irish government - to commit Irish troops to EU and NATO military operations.
Remarkably the government insist that removing the Triple Lock will not impact Ireland's neutrality, but participating in western military alliances would clearly mark the end of neutrality. Participating in EU and NATO military operations overseas without UN backing is certainly not compatible with what the Irish public understand neutrality to mean.
Further, states around the world, including those that the government claim are already hostile, will understand that Ireland is no longer to be regarded as a neutral state. This will only serve to increase the security risks Ireland faces, not defend against them.
Whilst the government continue to pay lip service to neutrality it is clear they aim to abandon it in order to explicitly 'take sides' with the US, EU, and NATO in international conflicts, even when this is manifestly against the wishes of the Irish people.
Ireland is in effect undergoing a quiet revolution in foreign affairs imposed from above, even as the government lacks a mandate to fundamentally reorient the state's place in the world. All those interested in Ireland's future security and in world peace, should be extremely concerned by the government's backdoor erosion of neutrality.
'Rules-based international order' vs The UN
Despite the Taoiseach's insistence that Ireland remains committed to a 'rules-based international order, with the UN at its centre,' his government is actively trying to depart from a world in which the UN is the body tasked with defining, governing, and sometimes policing the 'rules-based international order'.
In attempting to remove the requirement for a UN mandate to deploy Irish troops overseas, Mr Martin and his government have been arguing that the UN is not the international guarantor of international order but rather an obstacle to it, on the basis that Russia and China might hypothetically veto peacekeeping missions.
Likewise, the government are arguing that the role of these states within the UN Security Council is an obstacle to the exercise of Irish sovereignty. This might make sense if Irish sovereignty were defined by the capacity to join EU and NATO military operations overseas without a UN mandate.
This might make sense if the rules of the 'rules-based international order' are set not by the UN but by the US, EU, and their allies. However, it is incompatible with a commitment to a 'rules-based international order' governed by the UN.
It is interesting to note that western governments, including our own, are increasingly using the terminology of 'rules-based international order' rather than reference the UN or 'international law'.
Whilst a majority of the public no doubt understands the 'rules-based international order' to refer to the UN and the existing institutions of international law the sudden popularity of this term amongst western states indicates that it may mean something quite different. It seems clear from the Irish government's maneuverings around the Triple Lock that the 'rules-based international order' they have in mind is at very least not principally defined by the UN.
This is extremely concerning given that we can see the type of 'rules' western states adopt beyond the frame of the UN. The active material and diplomatic support given to Israel's genocide in Gaza by the US, the UK, and the EU (notably Germany) indicates that the 'rules-based international order' these states have in mind has no regard for international law whatsoever, at least not when it applies to them or their allies.
It is right and reasonable then that the public ask who defines the 'rules' of the ''rules-based international order' and whose interests these 'rules' might serve.
America first
'America should write the rules. America should call the shots. Other countries should play by the rules that America and our partners set, and not the other way around.' It may surprise some that these are not the words of President Trump but of former President Barack Obama, writing in the Washington Post in 2016.
Obama was writing about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement designed to constrain China's increasing influence over Pacific trade, but regardless of the context, the quote is indicative of a fundamental set of assumptions about the role of the US in the world - assumptions common to US liberals and conservatives alike, Democrats as well as Republicans, and shared by most European states, certainly those that are also members of NATO.
The Taoiseach and his government like to argue that the Russian invasion of Ukraine marked the beginning of a new world and that Ireland's foreign policy must adapt to meet the changing times. According to the government this means abandoning neutrality (in everything but name) and massive increases in military spending to prepare Ireland for future conflict with Russia, or even China.
Former US President Barak Obama wrote in the Washington Post in 2016: 'America should write the rules. America should call the shots'. File photo: Chris Jackson/PA
The EU White Paper on European Defence published in March makes the direction of EU foreign policy travel and expectations of military spending for member states very clear. Yet this breakneck European militarization is not only a reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine but responds to a longer term strategic shift of US resources and attention away from European security towards Chinese containment.
This move was first announced in 2009 with Obama's 'Pivot to Asia' but was pursued more aggressively since under both Trump and Biden administrations. Hence, it is crucial that we understand European militarization not simply as a collective response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, but a development dictated by the shifting geostrategic priorities of the US.
I am hardly alone in wondering if Obama's upcoming visit to Dublin in September is partly timed to smooth public concerns about militarization ahead of a Dáil vote on the Triple Lock, by presenting an image of US leadership more acceptable to the Irish public than the current occupant of the White House.
Government fog
It is reasonable that there be a frank and honest discussion of the changes the government are trying to implement to Ireland's foreign policy, that the real drivers and consequences of these transformations are acknowledged, and that the policy changes proposed are open to serious democratic scrutiny and challenge.
Currently, this is not the case. The nature and stakes of the changes the government are trying to implement are shrouded in a technocratic fog and most media coverage platforms anti-neutrality partisans, advocates of militarization, and arms lobbyists as the relevant 'experts'.
Government parties protest that they are being honest with the public, but in reality they are trying to ensure their plans are subject to as little democratic oversight as possible.
The government know that a great majority of Irish people do not support the changes they are attempting to ram through and that insulating them from transparency is the best path to success. The government's gamble is that if the public don't know about - or understand – that removing the Triple Lock means the end of Ireland's neutrality then they won't mount any meaningful opposition.
By the time Irish troops are being sent to take part in multiple EU 'Battlegroups' overseas and the public spending needed to address pressing crises in housing, health, care, and climate is being used to buy fighter jets it will be too late.
Such a scenario is not a conspiracy but a plan, and it lies just on the other side of a successful vote on removing the Triple Lock. The coalition have promised a vote when the Dáil returns from summer recess.
Merrion Square
Just opposite the Dáil in Merrion Square Park stand two memorials marking the horrors of war.
Facing government buildings is the National Memorial to members of the Defence Forces who died in the Service of the State, a pyramid-shaped structure by the sculptor Brian King, unveiled in 2008 by then President Mary McAleese. Close by a small plaque marks the spot where a cherry tree was planted in 1980 by the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 'in memory of A-bomb victims'.
Just metres away from each other, these memorials offer a stark reminder of the distance the Irish government has already gone in weakening the foreign policy positions that have been Ireland's strength on the world stage. The principled stand Ireland has taken against militarization, imperialism, and great power conflict have ensured this country enjoys a positive international reputation and outsize diplomatic influence, particularly in the Global South.
The Irish public are rightly proud of and deeply attached to this legacy. Pursuing a foreign policy based on international diplomacy, the peaceful resolution of conflict, and independence from military alliances has not always been an easy path and it has often displeased friendly states on whom Ireland is economically dependent.
Then-Taoiseach, Brian Cowen and Then-President, Mary McAleese at the ceremony in 2008 at Merrion Square to mark the Dedication of the National Memorial to Members of the Defence Forces who have died in the service of the State. File photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland
However, it has not only been the right thing to do - upholding the state's values, as expressed in the Constitution - but it has also served the country's interests well. A lack of enemies has been, and remains, Ireland's best defence.
The Irish public remember the lessons of our own history, and the terrible costs of war, even as the government seem determined to forget them. Opinion polls show that a very large majority of the Irish public are deeply attached to a vision of Ireland that is opposed to imperialism and war.
However, active neutrality is not simply a popular policy position but something that people strongly identify with, that touches on the core of what they understand 'Irishness' to be. The government's attempts to remove the Triple Lock threatens to undermine this crucial connection between people and State.
Betraying the public on this issue risks sowing alienation, suspicion, and resentment - sentiments already providing fertile soil for the growth of anti-democratic and far right forces across the country.
The government is right that the world is changing. It is up to all of those invested in democracy, peace, and international co-operation – best expressed in the existing institutions of the UN – to ensure they make the right response.
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