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New World order will be regional, agenda-specific: External Affairs Minister

Posted 04 Apr 2025

2 min read

While addressing a preparatory meeting for the BIMSTEC Summit, Minister suggested that the regional groups like BIMSTEC should be approached from a more ambitious perspective in the changing global order from multilateralism. towards minilateralism.  

  • Minilaterals are informal and targeted grouping with fewer states (usually 3 or 4) which intend to address specific threat, contingency, or security issues, sharing the same interest for resolving it within a finite period of time. E.g., I2U2, BRICS, etc.

Why is there a rise in agenda-specific minilaterals?

Challenges of Minilateralism

  • Small groups are easier to build trust and maintain informality, but agendas may stall due to government changes. E.g., QUAD’s collapse in 2007 after the then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s resignation.
  • Lack of inclusivity: E.g., ASEAN countries have expressed concerns about being sidelined by groups like AUKUS, threatening regional cohesion.
  • Limited resources: Smaller coalitions may lack the collective capacity to tackle large-scale global challenges like climate change or pandemics due to lack of funds and technological cooperation.
  • Limitations of multilateral institutions such as the UN and WTO in achieving consensus among diverse member states.
    • Minilaterals involve fewer states, enabling faster decision-making, and implementation. E.g., the QUAD showed rapid coordination in vaccine distribution during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
  • Great-power Rivalry: Heightened tensions have paralyzed larger multilateral frameworks. E.g., dysfunctional WTO's dispute settlement system.
    • As a response regional Free Trade Agreements like RCEP are being signed between smaller numbers of countries.
  • Emerging and urgent challenges like climate change, cybersecurity, are not being addressed effectively and on a priority basis.
    • On the other hand, agenda-specific groups like the International Solar Alliance allow for specialized expertise and resources to be pooled effectively.

Conclusion

Along with building agenda-specific partnerships with various countries at minilateral level, India should continue to push for reforms in the multilateral organisations such as UNSC and WTO to safeguard universal rules-based global order.

  • Tags :
  • Minilateralism
  • Issue-based Coalition
  • QUAD Security Dialogue
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