“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born.” The words of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci feel uncannily apt in 2025, as the system of international law and global governance established after World War II faces its gravest crisis since its creation.
What has emerged in its place, critics argue, is not a coherent alternative order but a vacuum — one increasingly filled by raw power, coercion, and transactional diplomacy. At the center of this rupture stands Donald Trump, whose return to the White House has accelerated the erosion of international norms that the United States once championed.
For decades, the postwar “rules-based international order” rested on shared commitments: national sovereignty, the prohibition of territorial conquest, multilateral cooperation, and respect for international law. That framework is now fraying — not because it was ignored by rivals alone, but because its principal architect has turned against it.
A Rejection Made Explicit
Few observers can claim they were not warned. During his Senate confirmation hearing in February, Marco Rubio laid out the Trump administration’s worldview with striking clarity.
“The postwar global order is not just obsolete,” Rubio said. “It is now a weapon being used against us.”
According to Rubio, the liberal international order was built on what he described as a dangerous illusion — that national interests could be subordinated to universal values and that humanity was destined to converge into a single democratic community.
“This was not just a fantasy,” Rubio argued. “We now know it was a dangerous delusion.”
That assessment was echoed in the administration’s US National Security Strategy, which warned of cultural “erasure” in Europe and signaled U.S. support for nationalist movements willing to pursue “strategic stability with Russia.” The United States, the document declared, would no longer seek to “prop up the entire world order like Atlas.”
Chaos Masquerading as Strategy
On paper, this rhetoric resembles a coherent “America First” doctrine. In practice, critics say, Trump’s foreign policy is defined less by strategy than by impulse.
“There is no linear Trump foreign policy,” one analyst observed. “Just a series of disconnected explosions.”
As Donald Trump Jr. has openly boasted, unpredictability itself is treated as a virtue. The result has been deep confusion among America’s allies, who oscillate between resignation and hope that the rupture is not permanent.
Contempt for International Law
Amid this confusion, one constant has emerged: Trump’s open disdain for international law.
The constraints imposed by treaties, courts, and multilateral institutions — particularly rules limiting the use of force and protecting national sovereignty — are treated as obstacles rather than safeguards. In their place, the administration has embraced what critics describe as “sheer coercive power,” a form of diplomacy based on threats, leverage, and transactional deals.
This approach is evident in Washington’s posture toward Ukraine. Rather than fully backing Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression — something the U.S. has the military capacity to do — Trump has signaled interest in forging a profitable relationship with Vladimir Putin, even if it comes at Kyiv’s expense.
For European Union and NATO, this moment has profound implications for European sovereignty and the authority of the United Nations Charter.
Sovereignty for Sale
Trump’s willingness to treat sovereignty as negotiable extends beyond Europe. Venezuela, home to roughly 303 billion barrels of oil — nearly a fifth of global reserves — has drawn renewed U.S. attention, as have Greenland, Canada, and Mexico.
When warned that U.S. military actions killing Venezuelan civilians without due process could constitute war crimes, JD Vance responded bluntly on social media: “I don’t give a shit what you call it.”
The Pentagon later claimed it was legally permissible to kill shipwrecked sailors in the water if they were deemed combatants — an interpretation that alarmed international legal experts.
Free Trade Replaced by Extortion
International economic law has fared no better. Trump has weaponized the size of the U.S. market to extract concessions from allies, not only in trade but in domestic policy. Democratic credentials matter little; what counts is a leader’s personal relationship with Trump.
Critics describe the resulting system as quasi-monarchical — a world in which loyalty and flattery replace law and principle.
Gaza and the Collapse of Universality
Nowhere is the erosion of international norms more visible than in Gaza Strip. Israel’s prolonged military campaign, widely condemned by humanitarian organizations, has exposed the selective application of international law.
Majed al-Ansari, a senior adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, described the moment starkly:
“We are living in an age of disgusting impunity. We are reduced to asking those responsible to kill fewer people — not to respect international law, but merely to step back from going 100 miles away from it.”
Targeting the Guardians of Law
The Trump administration has not limited itself to ignoring international law — it has actively targeted those who attempt to enforce it.
International Criminal Court judge Nicolas Guillou described how U.S. sanctions imposed after the court issued an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu transformed his daily life.
“All my accounts with American companies have been closed,” Guillou told Le Monde. Even European banks, fearing U.S. retaliation, shut his accounts.
Human rights organizations such as Al-Haq have faced similar financial strangulation for cooperating with international courts.
Hollowing Out Multilateralism
The United States has withdrawn from or undermined numerous UN bodies, including UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO. Funding cuts totaling an estimated $1 billion and the dismissal of more than 1,000 U.S. officials tied to multilateral portfolios have further weakened global institutions.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry summed up the shift bluntly: the U.S. has moved “from leader to denier, delayer, and divider.”
A Crisis of Faith in Law
Ironically, this collapse comes at a moment when public faith in international law has surged, particularly among younger generations. Legal terms such as “genocide,” “proportionality,” and “sovereignty” dominate political discourse.
Yet scholars warn that law cannot substitute for politics. Gerry Simpson of the London School of Economics admitted that even his long-held skepticism has been challenged by the depth of public belief placed in legal remedies.
Others, like Thomas Skouteris, argue that international law now risks becoming performance rather than power — invoked constantly but obeyed rarely.
Voices of Resistance
Not all have acquiesced. Christoph Heusgen, outgoing chair of the Munich Security Conference, warned that destroying the rules-based order is easy, but rebuilding it may be impossible.
“It’s my strong belief that this world needs a single set of norms — the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he said.
Similarly, Tom Fletcher posed a haunting question to diplomats:
“What will we tell future generations we did to stop the atrocities we witnessed?”
From Order to Disorder
For Majed al-Ansari, the trajectory is clear.
“We are not moving to a multipolar world,” he said. “We are moving into a system where anybody can do whatever they like — as long as they can get away with it.”
In dismantling the legal architecture the U.S. once built, Trump has not replaced it with a stable alternative. Instead, critics argue, he has ushered in an era defined by impunity, coercion, and uncertainty — a void where law once stood.
