When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently declared that the “old order is not coming back", his remarks were widely welcomed in Western capitals. Editorial boards praised his honesty. Commentators described the speech as realistic and courageous. For many observers, it sounded like a long-overdue moment of clarity in a world unsettled by war, economic instability, and geopolitical rivalry.
In important ways, it was.
But it was also late.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Carney acknowledged what many in the Global South — and many critical voices within Western societies — have been saying for decades: that the so-called “rules-based international order” was never applied equally. International law, he conceded, was enforced with very different levels of seriousness depending on political alliances, strategic interests, and economic power. Some violations triggered swift punishment. Others were softened, justified, or quietly ignored.
This uneven system endured as long as it did because, for those who benefited from it, it appeared to function. It delivered market access, capital flows, and political influence. As long as economic growth continued and power remained concentrated in familiar hands, moral and legal inconsistencies could be treated as unfortunate but tolerable flaws.
That bargain has now collapsed.
What deserves deeper reflection is why this truth took so long to be acknowledged openly.
For much of the postwar era, Western governments preserved legitimacy through careful language and institutional routines. International law was celebrated even as it was applied selectively. Military interventions were framed as humanitarian obligations. Sanctions that devastated civilian populations were defended as necessary pressure. Long-term occupations were presented as temporary security arrangements.
These practices were described as exceptions.
They were not.
They were part of the structure.
The system survived because its costs were pushed outward. Communities in the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America absorbed the human consequences. Their displacement, impoverishment, and political instability rarely became central issues in Western domestic debates. Their suffering remained distant, abstract, and easily compartmentalized.
From Palestine to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Libya, entire societies lived with the consequences of selective legality.
For a long time, that distance protected the system from serious scrutiny.
It no longer does.
U.S. President Donald Trump did not create this reality. But he exposed it. By treating alliances, trade relationships, and even territory as transactional assets — including renewed interest in Greenland — he abandoned the diplomatic language that once softened power politics. What earlier leaders expressed cautiously, he stated bluntly.
What unsettles Western capitals today is not that power shapes international relations. It always has.
What unsettles them is that power is now being exercised closer to home.
Territory suddenly feels sacred when it is Greenland, not Gaza. Sovereignty becomes non-negotiable when Canada or Denmark is involved, not Iraq or Libya. International law feels urgent when it protects familiar allies, not distant civilians.
This pattern is not accidental. It reveals how fragile the moral foundations of the old order always were.
To his credit, Carney refused to pretend otherwise. By describing the present moment as a rupture rather than a temporary adjustment, he rejected the comforting idea that stability will simply return. He also acknowledged that economic integration does not guarantee security — a lesson Canada has learned as tariffs, trade coercion, and “national security” restrictions return.
For a country whose prosperity depends on predictable rules, that recognition is important.
Still, it is not enough.
This crisis did not begin with Trump. Trump merely stopped disguising it.
For decades, international law was treated as flexible when powerful states or their allies were involved. Norms were enforced against adversaries and relaxed for partners. The language of legality remained in place, but its substance slowly drained away.
Over time, this weakened the system’s credibility.
When rules constrain only rivals, they stop functioning as rules. When exceptions become routine, predictability disappears. What now looks like global disorder is, in part, the delayed consequence of selective justice.
Former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy recently warned that the Arctic has become “Canada’s front line” in light of renewed U.S. pressure. He is right. But this episode is more than a regional dispute. It is a test of whether international law still has meaning when powerful actors openly dismiss restraint.
Signals sent in Greenland are heard in Ukraine, Taiwan, and Gaza alike.
What is rewarded in one place shapes expectations everywhere.
There is also an uncomfortable irony in this moment. Many of the insights now embraced in Western capitals were articulated long ago by scholars and policymakers across Asia, Africa, and the Muslim world. They warned that global institutions were structured to privilege influence and marginalize vulnerability — and that reform would only occur when instability reached Western societies.
Those arguments were once dismissed as ideological.
Today, they are described as realism.
Not because they are new, but because they can no longer be ignored.
Carney is right not to romanticize the past. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But neither is selective memory. If Canada — and the West more broadly — wishes to defend international law, it cannot do so only when familiar allies are threatened.
The collapse of an illusion does not automatically produce justice. It creates a vacuum. Unless that vacuum is filled deliberately — with consistency, restraint, and genuine accountability — it will be filled by raw power.
For communities that have long lived with unequal enforcement, this moment is not surprising. What remains uncertain is whether the next system will finally treat them as equal participants, rather than peripheral subjects.
For once, the gap between rhetoric and reality is visible.
The question is whether the world is prepared to confront it honestly — or whether it is merely unsettled because its consequences have finally reached home.