FORMER Jamaica Prime Minister Bruce Golding has sounded a stark warning that the world is facing its gravest challenge since the Cuban Missile Crisis more than six decades ago and urged global leaders to forge a united consensus to reverse a dangerous course that he said is replacing the rule of law with the doctrine of might.

Golding cautioned that unless the international community acts decisively, the growing acceptance of power over principle risks becoming the new global norm, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

“The global architecture is now under serious threat. We are witnessing a resurgence of isolationism under the guise of nationalism. Putting our own country first has never been incompatible with multilateralism. It simply meant identifying ways in which our national goals and aspirations can more successfully be pursued through collaboration with other countries,” Golding said in his address to the 14th World Peace Forum at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, Friday morning in that country.

“The erosion of the fabric of peaceful international relations and negotiated settlement of disputes is exemplified in the unprovoked Russian assault on Ukraine, the reckless bombing of vessels alleged but not proven to be transporting illegal drugs in the Caribbean Sea, the US incursion in Venezuela, the war on Iran, and the strangulation of the Cuban people by denying them access to oil shipments,” Golding added.

“The Geneva convention is being shredded and war crimes have been placed in abeyance. Might has been reaffirmed as right, the law of the jungle in which only the strong survive and the weak become nutrition for the powerful has been reasserted,” he said, adding that there is a more compelling call on leaders worldwide to take stock of what is happening as more than 80 years of progress achieved through the sacrifice of millions of people are being steadily rolled back with daunting prospects for what the future holds for human civilisation.

Framing his comments against current social and political developments in the United States, Golding said the inertia of current world leaders at a time in history — but not the first time — when extraordinary leadership is required is worrisome.

“The current leadership in the United States, which is a principal driver of this new blueprint, will soon pass. Whether the seeds of discord that it has sowed will persist and become the new norm is a question that it is impossible at this time to determine,” Golding argued.

“What is clear, however, is that the trust among countries and leaders, on which a stable international order so heavily rests, has been severely damaged. Trust, with its accepted norms, takes a long time to build and an even longer time, perhaps more than a generation, to rebuild,” he added.

“We urgently need a conversation and targeted advocacy across all countries to build a consensus that we need to change course, that we need to steady the ship, that all we have achieved over the last 80 years will not be allowed to fall to the bottom of the ocean,” said Golding.

He argued that the 14th World Peace Forum, building on its stellar achievements over more than a decade, is an important instrument in this endeavour.

As such, he said the forum “is more than an occasion, but a vibrant movement to appeal to and, in fact, provoke the consciousness and enlightenment of our leaders to the realisation that they are positioned on the bridge, that they are called by history and circumstance for a time like this, and that history will be unkind to them if they fail to heed that call”.

Golding’s full address can be seen on the Jamaica Observer Online edition.