The success of global cooperation in achieving world order: HSC Legal Studies

What this dot point is asking

The success of global cooperation in achieving world order is one of the four contemporary issues that must be studied in the World Order option of the Legal Studies Stage 6 Syllabus (2009). You must identify and investigate the issue and evaluate the effectiveness of legal and non-legal responses to it.

This issue is the positive counterpart to regional and global situations that threaten peace and security. The question is not whether the world is peaceful, but how far states, international organisations and non-state actors, working together, have produced order: rules that are made, obeyed and enforced. The best answers pick a few areas of cooperation (arms control is the richest), measure outcomes with evidence, explain why cooperation succeeds in some areas and fails in others, and reach a judgement. Use the themes: cooperation, compliance, changing values, law reform and effectiveness.

The answer

Why states cooperate, and what "success" means

States cooperate when they share an interest that none can secure alone: preventing nuclear war, stopping the spread of weapons, keeping trade routes open, or limiting climate change. Cooperation takes legal forms (treaties, customary law, Security Council resolutions, courts) and non-legal forms (diplomacy, political commitments, informal groups and the advocacy of NGOs).

Because international law rests on state consent (see the nature of world order), success should be judged on four questions:

1. Participation. How many states, and which ones, have joined?
2. Compliance. Do states obey, and can compliance be verified?
3. Enforcement. What happens when a state breaks the rules?
4. Outcomes. Has the world actually become safer, or the problem smaller?

Nuclear non-proliferation: the NPT regime

The treaty. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was opened for signature in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. It has three pillars: non-proliferation (non-nuclear-weapon states agree not to acquire nuclear weapons; the five states that had tested before 1967 are recognised as nuclear-weapon states), disarmament (article VI requires good-faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament) and peaceful use of nuclear energy (article IV). The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies non-nuclear-weapon states' compliance through safeguards agreements and inspections. In 1995 the parties extended the treaty indefinitely.

Successes.

• Near-universal participation. With 191 states parties, it is one of the most widely joined arms control treaties. Only India, Israel, Pakistan and South Sudan have never joined, and North Korea announced its withdrawal in 2003.
• Limited spread. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy warned that by the 1970s as many as 15 to 25 states might have nuclear weapons. Today there are nine. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons and joined the NPT in 1991, and Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan gave up the Soviet weapons on their territory in the 1990s.
• Verification. IAEA safeguards give states confidence that civilian nuclear programs are not being diverted. The Treaty of Rarotonga (1985) created a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, one of several regional zones that reinforce the NPT.
• Bilateral arms control. United States and Soviet, then Russian, agreements cut their arsenals from Cold War peaks.

Limits and failures.

• Disarmament has stalled. SIPRI estimated about 12,187 nuclear warheads in January 2026, and it warned that the long decline in numbers is likely to end as arsenals grow, with China's the fastest-growing.
• Arms control is unravelling. New START, which limited deployed United States and Russian strategic warheads to 1,550 each, expired on 5 February 2026 without a replacement, leaving no treaty limit on their strategic forces for the first time since 1972. Russia said it would keep observing the central limits for as long as the United States did.
• Review Conferences keep failing. The 2026 NPT Review Conference ended on 22 May 2026 without a consensus outcome document, after disputes among a handful of states including Iran and the United States. It was the third consecutive failure, after 2015 and 2022.
• Non-compliance. North Korea withdrew and built about 60 warheads (SIPRI, 2026). Over Iran, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (endorsed by Resolution 2231) collapsed after the United States withdrew in 2018; France, Germany and the United Kingdom triggered the "snapback" of UN sanctions in August 2025, citing Iran's significant non-performance, and the sanctions were reimposed at the end of September 2025, over the objections of Iran, China and Russia.
• Division over disarmament. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017), in force since 2021 and promoted by non-nuclear states and ICAN, reflects frustration with the pace of article VI. No nuclear-armed state, and not Australia, is a party.

Chemical weapons: the most successful disarmament treaty

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was concluded in 1993 and entered into force on 29 April 1997. It bans the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and requires states to destroy their stockpiles under the verification of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.

• Universal and verified. With 193 states parties, it is nearly universal. On 7 July 2023 the OPCW verified that all 72,304 tonnes of chemical agents declared by states parties had been irreversibly destroyed, including the United States' final stockpile. It is the first multilateral treaty to verify the elimination of an entire declared category of weapons of mass destruction.
• Syria. Under a United States and Russian framework endorsed by Security Council Resolution 2118 (2013), Syria joined the CWC and its declared stockpile was removed and destroyed. But OPCW investigators later attributed chemical attacks to the former Syrian government and to Islamic State, and the Conference of States Parties suspended Syria's rights and privileges in April 2021. After the fall of the Assad government in December 2024, the new authorities invited the OPCW back. An OPCW deployment in May 2026 found chemical weapons-related materials that had never been declared, confirming that the former government concealed parts of its program. On 9 July 2026 the Executive Council restored Syria's rights, citing its cooperation and a significant change of circumstances.

The CWC shows that cooperation works best when a treaty is verifiable, when compliance is in most states' interests, and when an expert organisation can investigate. Its weakness is that it depends on honest declarations and on the Security Council to punish violations.

Conventional arms: the Arms Trade Treaty and weapons bans

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Adopted by the General Assembly on 2 April 2013 and in force on 24 December 2014, the ATT is the first global treaty regulating the international trade in conventional arms. States must assess whether an export could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law and must not authorise a transfer if they know at the time that the arms would be used to commit genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The final negotiating conference was chaired by Australia's Ambassador Peter Woolcott, and Australia ratified in 2014. The treaty has 118 states parties. Its weakness is participation: the United States signed but announced in 2019 that it would not ratify, and Russia is not a party, although China acceded in 2020. Arms continue to reach conflicts such as Sudan's.

Weapons bans. The Ottawa Convention (1997) on anti-personnel mines and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (2008) stigmatised whole classes of weapons, driven by NGO coalitions. But Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Poland withdrew from the Ottawa Convention in 2025 and 2026, citing the threat from Russia, which shows how security fears can reverse cooperation. These treaties are covered on the conduct of hostilities page.

Climate change and security

Climate change is increasingly treated as a threat to peace and security: it drives food and water insecurity and displacement, and for low-lying Pacific states it threatens territory itself. Pacific Islands Forum leaders declared in the Boe Declaration (2018) that climate change is the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific.

• The Paris Agreement (2015) created a near-universal framework: every party sets and updates nationally determined contributions to limit warming to well below 2°C and pursue 1.5°C.
• The ICJ advisory opinion (23 July 2025). At the request of the General Assembly (Resolution 77/276, 2023), initiated by Vanuatu and Pacific law students, the Court unanimously advised that states have binding obligations under treaties and customary international law to protect the climate system from greenhouse gas emissions, including a duty of due diligence to prevent significant harm, and that breaching those obligations can be an internationally wrongful act giving rise to state responsibility.
• Withdrawal. The United States' second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement took effect on 27 January 2026, showing that a major emitter can leave.
• Australia. Australia and Turkiye agreed in November 2025 that Turkiye would host COP31 in Antalya (9 to 20 November 2026) and hold the COP presidency, with Australia as President of Negotiations and a pre-COP in the Pacific, to be held in Fiji with a special leaders' gathering in Tuvalu (5 to 8 October 2026). Australia's Falepili Union Treaty with Tuvalu (in force 2024) recognises that Tuvalu's statehood will continue despite sea-level rise.

International organisations and regional bodies

The United Nations remains the centre of cooperation (see the role of the UN). Its successes include peacekeeping and the negotiation of most of the treaties above. But it is under financial strain: the General Assembly's Fifth Committee approved a peacekeeping budget of $5.1 billion (US) for 2026-27, which the UN described as 10 per cent lower than the previous period, and the regular budget for 2026 was cut, amid reduced and delayed contributions, notably from the United States. The United States also announced its withdrawal from 66 international organisations in January 2026.

Regional organisations often succeed where the UN is blocked, because members share interests:

• The European Union has coordinated successive sanctions packages against Russia and funding for Ukraine.
• NATO admitted Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024), and its members agreed at The Hague in June 2025 to raise defence and security spending towards 5 per cent of GDP by 2035. Supporters see this as deterrence that preserves order; critics see an arms race.
• The African Union, through its Peace and Security Council, has deployed missions such as those in Somalia, but it has struggled to broker peace in Sudan.
• ASEAN adopted a Five-Point Consensus on Myanmar in April 2021, which the military government has largely not implemented; ASEAN's principle of non-interference limits its leverage.
• The Pacific Islands Forum supported the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI, 2003 to 2017), led by Australia, which restored order at the Solomon Islands government's request.

Non-government organisations

NGOs have been central to several of the most successful regimes:

• the International Campaign to Ban Landmines drove the Ottawa Convention and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997;
• the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), founded in Melbourne, drove the TPNW and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017; the Japanese survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo won in 2024;
• the Control Arms coalition campaigned for the Arms Trade Treaty;
• the International Committee of the Red Cross promotes compliance with humanitarian law, and research bodies such as SIPRI and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program supply the evidence on which policy is based.

NGOs change values and set agendas, but they cannot bind states; their success depends on persuading governments.

Australia's role

Australia has been a consistent supporter of cooperative security as a middle power:

• Chemical and biological weapons. Australia has chaired the Australia Group of states coordinating export controls since 1985.
• Nuclear disarmament. It convened the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (1996), is a party to the Treaty of Rarotonga, and supports the NPT and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, while relying on United States extended deterrence and declining to join the TPNW.
• Arms trade. Its diplomat chaired the final ATT conference (2013).
• Sanctions monitoring. It is one of the 11 states in the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team on North Korea (2024).
• Regional security. It led INTERFET (1999) and RAMSI (2003 to 2017), and signed the Pukpuk Treaty, a mutual defence treaty, with Papua New Guinea on 6 October 2025; it entered into force on 8 July 2026.
• AUKUS. Australia's plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines requires an arrangement with the IAEA, under article 14 of its safeguards agreement, covering the naval nuclear material. The government says it will meet the highest non-proliferation standards; critics, including China, argue it sets a proliferation precedent.

Evaluating the success of global cooperation

Judgement. Global cooperation has been significantly but conditionally successful in achieving world order. Where states share an interest and compliance can be verified, as with chemical weapons and non-proliferation, cooperation has produced results that no state could achieve alone, and NGOs and middle powers such as Australia have shaped those regimes. But cooperation rests on consent. When the major powers compete, it stalls or reverses: 2025 and 2026 brought the end of New START, a third failed NPT Review Conference, withdrawals from the Paris Agreement and the Ottawa Convention, and cuts to the UN. The record of cooperation shows that world order is achievable, but that it must be continually renewed.

In one sentence

Global cooperation has produced real successes, such as the NPT's containment of nuclear spread, the verified destruction of all declared chemical weapons and the first global arms trade rules, because states shared interests and could verify compliance, but the 2026 expiry of New START, the failed NPT Review Conference and withdrawals from key treaties show that its success depends on consent and weakens when major powers compete.

Try this

Q1. Outline the role of the IAEA in the non-proliferation regime. (3 marks)

• What the marker wants. Safeguards agreements and inspections verifying that non-nuclear-weapon states do not divert nuclear material, with an example.

Q2. Explain why some treaty regimes are more successful than others. (6 marks)

• What the marker wants. Participation, verification, shared interests and enforcement, comparing two regimes such as the CWC and the ATT.

Q3. Evaluate the contribution of Australia to global cooperation in achieving world order. (8 marks)

• What the marker wants. Specific initiatives (Australia Group, Canberra Commission, ATT, MSMT, RAMSI, COP31), their outcomes and limits, and a judgement.