This article aims to discuss what multilateralism should or should not be, and on the importance of multilateralism for humanity.
When we discuss multilateralism, we need to go back to historical global and regional events and ask: why was the UN created in the first place? Why was ASEAN created? Why does ASEAN have 10 members?
If we don’t constraint ourselves to any ideological thought or geopolitical self-censorship, we can come to a simple yet common answer for everyone. Multilateral institutions were created because we want peace, harmony, development, freedom from miseries and poverty, and bright future for our next generations. Principles and purposes of all multilateral organisations always share these common goals for humanity, leaving no one behind.
We human being, after two consecutive destructive World Wars, decided to sit down and devise mechanism through which we can manage instabilities, irregularities, risks of mistrust, and mitigate or eliminate all kinds of miseries that human being can think of.
Despite having common ideals, gaps of approaches are inevitable.
Some societies are striving for perfection. Some societies are struggling yet for their most basic needs. When these societies interact with one another, they are divided by power gaps, ideologies – for instance during the Cold War, and the ways each state pursue their governance and development path. And these realities create struggles among states, and within multilateralism.
Full article: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/opinion/multilateralism-humanity-cambodian-perspective
