WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD REACHED A MAJOR ACCORD? You’d have to go all the way back to 1994 and the World Trade Organization’s Uruguay Round. Forget the Paris Agreement, which contains no binding commitments to cut emissions. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are commendable, but the deadline of 2030 to eliminate global poverty and other scourges is likely to pass with little notice. Even as the list of transnational challenges grows—pandemics, debt, climate change—the ability to arrive at collaborative solutions is at an ebb.
In the 21st century, the old multilateral institutions, many of them created in the wake of World War II, are beset by
