Multilateralism in Peril: The Uneasy Triangle of the US, China and the EU

297 Pages·2022·12.685 MB·English

by  Chien-Huei Wu, Frank Gaenssmantel, Francesco Giumelli

Multilateralism in Peril
This collaborative work brings together international lawyers and political
scientists to explore whether and how the retreat of the US, and the simultaneous
rise of China, affect the dynamics of multilateralism to which the EU claims
to adhere. It focuses on the trilateral interaction between these three actors and
the policy impact their interactions have in specific multilateral settings and
examines cooperation, competition and confrontation of these three actors in key
international organisations such as the WTO, UNESCO, Human Rights Council
and UNCLOS, NATO, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the WHO in times of
Covid-19. It also addresses their approaches and attitudes toward international
humanitarian norms and the peace process in the Middle East.
This book offers an insightful exploration of the future of multilateralism
under the impact of the Trump administration and probes the future of the liberal
international order. It will provide excellent reading material on current affairs for
both graduate and undergraduate students in international law and international
relations, in particular for courses relating to international organisation,
multilateralism or the US, China and the EU in international affairs. For
experienced researchers the book proposes in-depth studies that relate to major
debates in the disciplines of international law and international relations.
Chien-Huei Wu is Research Professor in the Institute of European and American
Studies (IEAS), Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, and currently coordinates the
US-Taiwan-China research group.
Frank Gaenssmantel is Assistant Professor at the Department of International
Relations and International Organisation at the University of Groningen, the
Netherlands, since 2010. He previously held a position as Research Fellow at the
Centre for Advanced Studies on Contemporary China (Centro di Alti Studi sulla
Cina Contemporanea, CASCC) in Turin.
Francesco Giumelli is Associate Professor in the Department of International
Relations and International Organization at the University of Groningen, the
Netherlands. He was previously Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University
Institute and Fellow at the Kroc Institute of Notre Dame University.
Global Governance
Series Editor: John J. Kirton, University of Toronto, Canada
Global governance is growing rapidly to meet the compounding challenges
of a globalized 21st-century world. Many issues once dealt with largely at the
local, national or regional level are now going global, in the economic, social
and political-security domains. In response, new and renewed intergovernmental
institutions are arising and adapting, multilevel governance is expanding, and
sub-national actors are playing a greater role, creating complex combinations and
private-partnerships to this end.
This series focuses on the new dynamics of global governance in the 21st
century by:
• Addressing the changes in the structure, operation and impact of individual
intergovernmental institutions, above all their innovative responses to the
growing global challenges they confront.
• Exploring how they affect, are affected by and relate to non-state actors of
global relevance and reach.
• Examining the processes of cooperation, competition and convergence
among international institutions and the many global governance gaps where
global challenges such as terrorism, transnational crime and energy do not
confront powerful international institutions devoted to their control.
• Dealing with how global institutions govern the links among key issues such
as climate change and health.
In all cases, the series focuses on the central questions of how global governance
institutions and processes generate the effective, legitimate, accountable results
required to govern today’s interconnected, complex, uncertain and crisis-ridden
world.
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.
com /Global -Governance /book -series /ASHSER1420
Institutionalised Summits in International Governance
Promoting and Limiting Change
Daniel Odinius
Reconfiguring the Global Governance of Climate Change
John Kirton, Ella Kokotsis and Brittaney Warren
Multilateralism in Peril
The Uneasy Triangle of the US, China and the EU
Edited by Chien-Huei Wu, Frank Gaenssmantel and Francesco Giumelli
Multilateralism in Peril
The Uneasy Triangle of the US,
China and the EU
Edited by Chien-Huei Wu,
Frank Gaenssmantel and
Francesco Giumelli
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Chien-Huei Wu, Frank Gaenssmantel
and Francesco Giumelli; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Chien-Huei Wu, Frank Gaenssmantel and Francesco Giumelli
to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-76522-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-76523-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16735-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003167358
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
List of Contributors viii
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: Conceptualising Multilateralism amidst Shifting
Relations between the United States, the European Union and China 1
FRANK GAENSSMANTEL, FRANCESCO GIUMELLI AND CHIEN-HUEI WU
PART 1
Global Multilateralism: The UN, Its Specialised Agencies
and Related Regimes 19
1 Cultural Heritage as the New Standard of Civilisation?
Engagement with UNESCO from Rejection to Aggressive
Embrace and the Perpetuation of Empire 21
LUCAS LIXINSKI
2 The United States, China and the European Union at the
UN Human Rights Council: Trilateral Dynamics over
International Human Rights Norms, Institutions and Politics 36
YU-JIE CHEN
3 Pandemic Shifts? Covid-19 and the Geopolitics of Disease 53
NADINE VOELKNER
4 The Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council and
Multilateral Humanitarian Legal Regimes 70
LIJIANG ZHU
vi Contents
5 Multilateralism in Law of the Sea and Its Implications for the
South China Sea 89
CHEN-JU CHEN
PART 2
Multilateral Structures for Economic, Social and
Environmental Cooperation 107
6 Apocalypse Now: The WTO Dispute Settlement System in the
Times of Trump 109
LUKASZ GRUSZCZYNSKI
7 The Multilateral Trade and Monetary System in Peril:
Can China Replace the US at the IMF? 126
SALIHA METINSOY
8 International Labour Standards (ILS) as a Sine Qua Non of
Bilateral and Multilateral Governance of International Trade:
Increasing Potential for Conflict? 152
HERMAN VOOGSGEERD
9 A New Page for EU-China Energy Relations? The Impact of
Trump’s Withdrawal from Paris Agreement on Cooperation
and Competition in Energy Transition 167
YAROSLAVA MARUSYK
PART 3
Multilateralism and Regional Security 191
10 All Dressed up with Nowhere to Go: The ASEAN Regional
Forum, Major Power Disinterest and the Limits of Multilateral
Security Cooperation in East Asia 193
JA IAN CHONG
11 Sticking to the Big Brother: An Analysis of the EU’s Response
to Revitalised US-North Korea Relations 210
FRANCESCO GIUMELLI
12 Failing Forward: US Withdrawal and the Increasing Role
of the EU and China vis-à-vis the Iran Nuclear Deal 227
AGHA BAYRAMOV AND MUSTAFA ALI SEZAL
Contents vii
13 The Middle East Peace Process: Changing US Policies and EU
and Chinese Involvement 243
MOR SOBOL
Conclusion: Multilateralism in Peril? 262
FRANK GAENSSMANTEL, FRANCESCO GIUMELLI AND CHIEN-HUEI WU
Index 275
List of Contributors
Agha Bayramov is lecturer at the Department of International Relations and
International Organization of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
His research interests are energy security, geopolitics, the Caspian Sea region,
Nagorno-Karabakh, Eurasia and climate change.
Chen-Ju Chen is currently Associate Professor in International Law jointly
appointed by the College of Law and College of International Affairs at the
National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Upon her doctoral studies in Hamburg,
Germany, she returned to Taiwan for both research and teaching in the fields
of public international law and the law of the sea. Chen’s interests focus on the
law of the sea and inter-related fields, such as the sea and environment, the sea
and trade, the sea and the EU, etc. In both Chinese and English, Chen’s papers
have been published in relevant fields both in Taiwan and abroad. On these
bases, Chen looks forward to strengthening and expanding her law of the sea
and fisheries research in the near future.
Yu-Jie Chen is an Assistant Research Professor at Institutum Iurisprudentiae
of Academia Sinica, Taiwan, and an Affiliated Scholar at the US-Asia Law
Institute of NYU School of Law, USA. Her research focuses on human rights
and international law and relations, particularly in the context of China,
Taiwan and China-Taiwan relations, including topics concerning China’s
authoritarian political and legal system, China’s influence on the international
human rights regime, human rights and rule of law issues in China-Taiwan
relations and Taiwan’s interaction with international human rights norms. In
addition to publishing in academic journals in the United States, Taiwan and
Hong Kong, she also writes op-eds and takes part in public-facing discussions.
Yu-Jie received her JSD and LLM degrees from NYU School of Law. She also
holds an LLM and LLB from National Chengchi University, Taiwan. She was
an inaugural Global Academic Fellow at the University of Hong Kong Faculty
of Law (2019–2020). She has had extensive experience as a research scholar at
the US-Asia Law Institute, NYU School of Law. Prior to that, she served as a
researcher and advocate for the non-governmental organisation Human Rights
in China. She earlier practiced in the Taipei-based international law firm Lee
and Li.
List of Contributors ix
Ja Ian Chong is Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of
Singapore. Chong’s work crosses the fields of international relations, comparative
politics and political sociology, with a focus on security issues relating to China
and East Asia. He follows the interplay of social movements, politics and
foreign policy in East Asia closely. Chong was a 2019/2020 Harvard-Yenching
Visiting Scholar, 2013 Taiwan Fellow, 2012/2013 East-West Center Asian
Studies Fellow and 2008/2009 Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program
fellow. He previously worked with the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, DC, and the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies
in Singapore. Chong’s work has appeared in a number of journals, edited
volumes and newspapers, including the China Quarterly, European Journal of
International Relations, International Security and Security Studies. He is author
of External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation: China, Thailand,
Indonesia – 1893–1952, Cambridge University Press, 2012, recipient of the
2013/2014 Best Book Award from the International Security Studies Section
of the International Studies Association. He is currently working on projects
examining the aggregate effects of middle and smaller power responses to major
power competition on stability, learning and responses to coercion, as well as the
political and social consequences of foreign influence operations.
Frank Gaenssmantel is Assistant Professor at the Department of International
Relations and International Organisation at the University of Groningen, the
Netherlands, since 2010. He previously held a position as Research Fellow
at the Centre for Advanced Studies on Contemporary China (Centro di Alti
Studi sulla Cina Contemporanea, CASCC) in Turin and taught at the School
of Advanced International and Area Studies at East China Normal University
in Shanghai. His research interests include European and Chinese foreign
policies, China-EU relations, foreign policy analysis and international trade
relations. He received his PhD from the European University Institute (EUI)
in Florence.
Francesco Giumelli is Associate Professor in the Department of International
Relations and International Organization at the University of Groningen,
the Netherlands. He was previously Jean Monnet Fellow at the European
University Institute and Fellow at the Kroc Institute of Notre Dame University.
He is the author of The Success of Sanctions: Lessons Learned from the EU
Experience (Routledge, 2013) and Coercing, Constraining and Signalling:
Explaining UN and EU Sanctions after the Cold War (ECPR Press, 2011).
He has published on sanctions, private military and security companies in
the Journal of Common Market Studies, International Affairs, International
Relations and International Peacekeeping. Beyond his work on sanctions,
Francesco studies issues concerning the role of private actors in security and
illicit trade.
Lukasz Gruszczynski is Associate Professor (dr. habil.) of International Law at
Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland, and a Research Fellow at the Centre