In September, the United Nations hosted the Summit of the Future which brought together G20 foreign ministers to seek ways of improving global governance mechanisms. During these meetings, a growing number of quarters joined forces to attempt to steer the international community toward a more rational and peaceful path. The way forward, however, is not easy.

A quarter of the world’s population currently lives in conflict-affected areas and global peacefulness has reached its lowest level since World War II. A new arms race is under way. Despite the treaty prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the consensus of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council that a nuclear war cannot be won, “the idea that nukes won’t be used in a conventional conflict is no longer a safe assumption”, a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations has said. 

French academic Raymond Aron, in his seminal work Peace and War, beckons us neither to ignore our common history of belligerence nor to betray the ideal of peace. Is it possible to redefine pacifism for the twenty-first century? The following thoughts are an attempt to pursue a conversation on this vital matter.

Understandings of War (and Peace)

In his 2001 essay Reflections on War, Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco argues that the modern world has started to view war in ways similar to how crimes of passion are perceived: “people may still do these things, but they are increasingly viewed as evil and outdated”. Eco considers war as simply irrational. He points out that not only do the outcomes of recent wars often contradict the aims for which they were waged, but also that wars are “antiecological”. These ideas are worth revisiting in the context of contemporary debates. 

The twenty-first century has witnessed a number of wars carried out in violation of the UN Charter and in defiance of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Iraq, Ukraine, and Gaza are the most noteworthy examples. Yet, military budgets continue to rise and preparations for war consume vast human and material resources—as if war could still deliver valuable outcomes. Eco ends his essay with an admonition: war must become a taboo, akin to incest, for it is fundamentally at odds with the progress of civilization. He challenges us to assume the intellectual duty to announce the necessity for such a taboo. His final verdict: war is both a crime and a waste.

Since 2018, I have been a member of Leaders pour la Paix (LPP), a group founded by former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. This initiative brings together representatives from all regions and latitudes to coalesce around an agenda focused on promoting peace through dialogue, diplomacy, and multilateralism. Our latest annual report, entitled A March of Reason for Peace, draws on Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly. 

In her work, Tuchman posits the question: “Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests?” Clearly, this question remains as relevant today as it was when she posed it 45 years ago. Irrational attitudes seem to have found new currency in both domestic and international affairs. Using Tuchman’s framework to identify epochs when folly carried the day, we would have to acknowledge that today, many peace and security policies are perceived as counterproductive by contemporary observers and alternative courses of action are indeed available.

If these two truths were not the case, we would be heeding the warnings of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres regarding the existential threats posed by growing tensions between leading powers, the devastating impacts of climate change, and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), to name but a few. We would be actively working to dissuade conflict between the world’s most heavily armed nations and promote nuclear disarmament. We would be cooperating to ensure that global warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius. We would be negotiating international regulations and obligations with respect to emerging dual-use technologies like AI.

From the international community’s lack of action on the threats laid out by Guterres, it is evident that policies in these domains are seen as counterproductive by many international decision makers in terms of their ability to promote peace, sustainability, and responsible use of new technologies. It is also clear, however, that alternative courses of action to war, environmental degradation, and scientific irresponsibility are both needed and feasible. 

Suffice it to note that the paralysis of the Security Council on Ukraine and Gaza is widely denounced; conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change draw significant attention from both the public and the media; and the Secretary-General himself, along with support from spiritual leaders like Pope Francis, has been calling for the negotiation of international frameworks to control the misuse of AI. The call for change has been made, repeatedly.

Unilateralism: A Concerning Trend

It would be premature to conclude that folly has irrevocably replaced reason. There are encouraging signs from civil society, academia, the informed press, and enlightened political leadership that point toward more constructive policy directions. Still, a worrisome pattern of distrust is undermining prospects for international cooperation on the most pressing issues of our times. 

A debate on multipolarity and multilateralism at the 2024 edition of the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi serves as an example of this tension. The meeting brought together a representative from the European Parliament, a U.S. academic, a foreign minister from a non-NATO Western country, and an Indian diplomat, as well as the author of this article. The discussions were telling. Some participants viewed multipolarity as intrinsically unstable. One participant believed the concept was really a ploy conceived by China to enhance its international standing. In contrast, others considered it the perfect antidote against hegemonic impulses.

Proving that one specific geopolitical distribution of power is inherently more or less conducive to stability and cooperation compared to another is a challenging task. Neither the bipolar period of the Cold War nor the unipolar moment of U.S. hegemony were free from conflict. It is perhaps easier to conclude that the real obstacles to cooperation and stability are not specific geopolitical distributions of power, but rather strong unilateralist attitudes and general disregard for international law. 

Unilateral military interventions have manifestly failed to achieve their intended objectives while undermining confidence in the international system that emerged after 1945. The most eloquent example is provided by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was conducted under the false pretext of eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The war indirectly contributed to the rise of terrorism in a country where it was notably absent and drew it into the Iranian orbit to the detriment of U.S. objectives in the region.

Global faith in international law is diminished in many ways; for instance, the targeting of civilians, which is often justified by unilateral interpretations of the right to self-defence, represents a serious challenge to predominant views on IHL. Israeli behavior in Gaza is an obvious example; Israel has justified killing over 40,000 Palestinians by claiming these deaths are necessary to ensure Israeli security. While terrorist attacks are well known for exposing civilians to increased violence around the world, governmental military action can also put civilians at risk, as seen in Ukraine, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Sudan, and Myanmar, inter alia.

The number of cases brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding illegal engagement with civilians has increased in recent years. Although the verdicts and arrest warrants issued by the ICC against Russian, Israeli, and Hamas leaders may not be automatically implementable, they constitute landmark instances of international condemnation likely to have long-term political and diplomatic repercussions. Meanwhile, as Guterres predicts in his New Agenda for Peace, we may be subject to “dangerous standoffs, possible miscalculations and spirals of escalation”. By convening a Summit of the Future in New York this past September, Guterres created an opportunity for this rising sense of alarm to express itself. 

The Possibility for Change

Could we be approaching a systemic tipping point? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines a tipping point as a critical threshold beyond which a system reorganizes, often abruptly or irreversibly. Governments have come to recognise that current patterns of production and consumption have become unsustainable, as they contribute to rising temperatures that threaten the livelihoods of future generations on Earth. 

By analogy, we could be approaching an irreversible tipping point for the viability of multilateralism, as violations of the UN Charter become more frequent and the use of force is not being curtailed by a universal commitment to its letter and spirit. While activists are increasingly pressuring governments to decarbonise and accelerate energy transitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we have yet to observe a comparable movement to ensure future generations are bequeathed a functional inter-state system of rights and obligations under multilateral supervision to promote peace and security. Just as it would be irresponsible to allow temperatures to rise beyond dangerous tipping points, it would be equally unwise to allow for a breakdown in multilateral cooperation, as this could lead to a total systemic meltdown.

Eco’s prophetic vision of war as taboo is not likely to materialize any time soon, if ever. Nevertheless, the prospect of a world in which  the use of force is not subject to international legal constraints poses a serious threat to us all today. A new march of folly may become irreversible, as distrust among the most powerful grows, eroding international law and multilateralism. 

The awareness of our vulnerability, as a species, to an uncontrolled rise in temperatures must be matched by a corresponding effort to preserve the achievements of the past seven decades in the promotion of inter-governmental cooperation for the pacific settlement of disputes. This may require the emergence of a new movement advocating for a non-selective adherence to international law to ensure sustainability and peace. 

An Emerging Path

Is a new pacifism for the twenty-first century imaginable? Bertrand Russell’s essay “The Future of Pacifism”, published during World War II, may offer a partial reply. His is not the absolute pacifism of the Bible (although he does remind us that all religions urge humans not to kill). Nor does he align himself with Tolstoy or Gandhi and their total objection to the use of force.  He admits that there may be wars worth fighting; defeating Nazi fascism was a case in point. 

However, Russell also argues that a civilized and humane way of life can hardly survive where wars are frequent and severe. He therefore asserts that it remains of “immeasurable importance” to create a machinery that will diminish the likelihood of wars and guarantee that every nation is free from aggression. He thus advances the notion of “relative political pacifism”. As early as 1943, before the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, Russell advocated for the creation of a global authority responsible for upholding a body of international law to preserve and promote peace. According to Russell, wars would only be justified “when, and only when, they are fought in defence of the international law established by the international authority”. 

In theory, this vision should be considered fully operative today, on the basis of the ratification of the UN Charter by the Organization’s 193 member states. Ideally, we should have all become “relative political pacifists”. In practice, however, there is a new emerging consensus that the system is not working as intended. Military budgets are soaring, nuclear weapons are being upgraded, and new technologies are being weaponized, while disarmament efforts are not merely at a standstill—they have gone into reverse.

In the minds of some, pacifism is viewed as tantamount to appeasement, and understood as a preference for avoiding conflict with an aggressive power. This perception is mainly associated with the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which allowed for the annexation of the Czech Sudetenland by Germany under Hitler, contributing indirectly to further Nazi invasions and ultimately to the outbreak of World War II. Those momentous events provide important historic lessons that are not to be undervalued or forgotten. 

Clearly, Russell’s conception of pacifism is incompatible with appeasement in the face of Hiterlian proportions of aggression. Yet, the term has come to be misused to justify bellicose attitudes of questionable wisdom. In 1962, for instance, a prominent U.S. general accused John F. Kennedy of appeasement for not bombing Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, a decision which could have triggered nuclear war. Historical context matters in this regard. 

It is possible to contend that a contemporary form of appeasement would be the tacit acceptance that the militarily powerful have the prerogative to violate international law. In this sense, a modern-day pacifism represents a form of political resistance against unwarranted and irresponsible military aggression; it represents the opposite of resigned passivity.

A New Pacifism

A deep malaise persists among the international community, with no end in sight for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, insufficient efforts to combat climate change, and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals remaining far off track. These represent clear political failures. Aron reminds us that morality has developed through time and that it is through politics that the actions of states are to be judged and gradually transformed. As environmental concerns have helped to underscore, human civilization on Earth will not survive—let alone advance—in the face of reckless activity.

A pacifism for our times can and should integrate peace and environmental sustainability as central political objectives. It must also confront the two tipping points our generation is faced with: environmental collapse and systemic breakdown. Let us not forget that sustainability, as defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, rests on three pillars: environmental, economic, and social transformations. As the G20 meets in Rio de Janeiro this month, Brazil is calling for a renewed international commitment to the eradication of poverty and hunger, which underwrites what might be described as a humanist blueprint for our collective future.

Rising inequality undermines actions on poverty and climate and cannot be dissociated from instability at the national and international levels. Global wealth concentration is increasing at an unprecedented scale and pace. The estimated share of global wealth owned by the top one million individuals has risen from 4% in the early 1990s to 13% today, according to Gabriel Zucman’s report A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, commissioned by Brazil’s G20 presidency. According to the latest OXFAM position paper on this subject, income disparity      has increased in 37 countries and has fueled inequalities in gender, opportunity, and inheritance.      

The call for climate justice has exposed the inequitable burden borne by regions that scarcely contribute to global warming yet suffer the most from extreme climate events. To make matters worse, some of the countries most affected by climate injustice are also highly indebted, with limited access to foreign assistance and capital markets. Brazil is proposing a global minimum tax on the world’s approximately 3,000 billionaires. This initiative has garnered significant political support, including from the developed world. If implemented, it could generate tens of billions of U.S. dollars and foster a positive dynamic among interrelated social, environmental, and peace and security objectives.

At present, these various goals are working at cross purposes. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military expenditure increased by 6.8% in 2023, the steepest year-on-year rise since 2009, reaching the highest level ever recorded. Meanwhile, the financial commitments to help developing countries address climate change are falling short. Although reports from organisations such as the UNFCCC, IPCC, and Climate Analytics indicate the low likelihood of achieving the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, carbon emissions from military activity remain conspicuously absent from key documentation. 

Under IPCC guidelines, reporting on military emissions is voluntary and many governments opt not to disclose this data. A recent report by Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) estimates that the military carbon footprint could account for 5.5% of global emissions. A less bellicose world would not only free up additional financial resources for combating climate change and reducing hunger and poverty, but also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from military activity. Additionally, the environmental degradation caused by avoidable wars is severe. In Gaza, not only has the massacre of civilians taken centre stage, but the environmental disaster has also reached devastating proportions, as if to illustrate Eco’s assertion that war is intrinsically antiecological.

A recent article by Professor Oona Hathaway, Director of the Yale Center for Global Legal Challenges, reminds us that International Humanitarian Law is intended to spare civilians from the worst calamities of conflict. She concludes that the law has failed in the Israel-Hamas war. Tragically, she asserts that the hard-won lessons of World War II may have been forgotten and that, if IHL is to survive today’s existential challenges, it must be regarded not as an optional constraint “to be adjusted or shrugged off as needed but as an unmoving pillar to the global legal order”. 

Philippe Sands, Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, wrote recently that the days of “international law for others” must end and that turning a blind eye to manifest violations by an ally should no longer be acceptable. These positions, taken by authoritative voices, are indicative of a growing mobilization for peace based on justice. Broader coalitions are echoing these concerns in similar fashion. At the Summit of the Future, the Global Governance Forum presented proposals for a new United Nations that rejects a perpetuation of the status quo of “deepening inequalities, accelerating climate change and the insatiable acquisition of more and deadlier weapons of war that increasingly put our future at risk”.

The Quincy Institute and its Better Order Project (BOP) report (to be launched before the end of the year) will likewise present recommendations on how to curtail the use of force, prevent nuclear war, and lower the risk of flashpoints escalating into confrontation among major military powers. The report reflects wide-ranging discussions, involving experts from the five UN Security Council permanent members as well as participants originating in all regional groups. The document is also being presented to the T20 (the G20 think tank gathering) in Brazil this month, to build support for a package of proposals adjusted for a non-unipolar world.

The working assumption, adopted by participants in the BOP from both the Global North and South, is that the shift away from unipolarity should not be perceived as leading to disarray and that a new era of relative peace and prosperity can be achieved under a multipolar geopolitical framework. In a similar vein, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) project on Shaping Cooperation in a Fragmented World suggests that restoring the credibility of the UN collective security architecture—an enterprise which will also require a combination of political courage and effective bilateral diplomacy—is crucial to avoiding a “collision course”.  

Leaders pour la Paix (LPP), in turn, has underlined the importance of subscribing to a single, universally applicable standard for upholding compliance with the UN Charter and IHL. Double standards breed cynicism, erode trust in a law-based world order, and undermine the authority of those who embrace it. LPP, with its focus on education for peace, suggests that we derive inspiration from the youth movements that rally to the climate summits to defend a sustainable path for our planet, highlighting that our future will also be jeopardized if systemic dysfunction is allowed to persist. 

In short, the motivation to craft an active pacifism for our times is inherent not only in the UN’s New Agenda for Peace but also in the initiatives of organisations such as LPP, SGR, the Global Governance Forum, the Better World Order Project at Quincy Institute, and the World Economic Forum. A pacifism for our times can be seen as synonymous with supporting civilizational progress or promoting a new humanism. In taking a stand against war and advocating for the preservation of a functional international system, environmental and social objectives will be more easily attainable, paving the way for a more cooperative order in a multipolar world.

At the 79th UN General Assembly this year, the Brazilian presidency of the G20 launched a pioneering initiative, marking the first time a meeting of the group was held at the UN headquarters. Convened on September 25, the meeting brought together not only G20 foreign ministers but also the broader UN membership to explore ways to improve multilateral governance. 

The meeting culminated in the adoption of a Call to Action on Global Governance Reform, addressing the need to modernize leading international institutions, such as the UN and World Trade Organization (WTO), while also committing to revising loan quotas at the IMF. Since his first address to the UN General Assembly in 2003, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has consistently defended the idea that nations committed to inclusive and democratic governance at the national level must also strive to preserve and improve international governance mechanisms. In this spirit, Brazil is proposing that serious consideration be given to convening a Review Conference of the UN Charter under article 109 thereof.

Not coincidentally, a day earlier, September 24, Brazil hosted an event at the UN entitled “In Defense of Democracy: Fighting Against Extremism”, co-led by Lula and Spanish Premier Pedro Sánchez, to foster dialogue on the challenges posed by extremism to democratic governance. By connecting the dots that interlink the most pressing objectives of the twenty-first century, the UN—and auxiliary mechanisms such as the G20—can come together to redefine pacifism as the galvanizing cause for the promotion of a global order that respects international law and is centred on human progress. A humanist foreign policy for a multipolar world should be the shared objective to ensure a future of sustainability and peace.