The greatest danger to the international order today is not the absence of rules, but the excess with which they are violated.
When the use of force becomes the norm rather than the exception, and when standards are applied selectively, international law does not collapse all at once. Instead, the very rule of law at the global level erodes slowly, until confidence in its protective capacity disappears altogether.
In legal terms, we know this moment well. We call it loss of proportionality, abuse of power, and the collapse of legitimacy. These are not abstract concepts, but precise indicators that the system is no longer performing its most basic function: preventing the strong from imposing their will in the name of justice.
A Buddhist monk once said to me, a practitioner of disciplined silence, as we sat in a circle near Chiang Mai, contemplating the state of the orange man, with a simplicity that unsettled me: “He is too much — and too much is too much.”
He was not speaking about politics, but about balance when it is lost.
That simplicity is precisely what we lack today. Excess — in bombing, punishment, and rhetoric — is not resolve. It is a sign of failed restraint.
This is why the world no longer needs more initiatives, but a governing principle capable of restoring order to both international conduct and the rule of international law. That principle is responsibility.
Responsibility does not mean neutrality, complicity, or silence.
It means that power is exercised within limits; that justice is not imposed unilaterally; and that law is not a tool of the powerful, but a collective covenant designed to protect all.
It is in this light that recent diplomatic efforts acquire their true meaning. When Saudi Arabia and France launched a track on the two-state solution, they did not recycle an exhausted idea. They reignited global imagination by restoring confidence in the rule of law, and by giving renewed purpose and momentum to the General Assembly itself. Their effort sought to reclaim a foundational rule: peace is a long-term legal process, not a transient political transaction.
Today, as calls emerge for a Responsibility Alliance bringing together states from both the Global South and North, it becomes clear that the world is not searching for louder voices, but for leadership with civilizational depth — leadership capable of setting the rhythm.
In an age of excess, leadership is not domination, but balance — the balance through which a future vision for a new international order will be shaped.
Prof. Dr. Malik Ãl-Dahlan
Professor of Law and specialist in international law; International Mediator.
Honorary Professor, University of St Andrews;
Emeritus Professor of International Law and Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London, and;
Member, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge.