Multilateralism is becoming modular and standards offer its building blocks

This year’s World Economic Forum Global Risks Report makes for sobering, if unsurprising, reading. Over the longer term, environmental risks are writ large, but have been usurped in the two-year timeline with the threat of geoeconomic confrontation and state-based armed conflict. In the face of our current global “disorder”, uncertainty is in, multilateralism is out. And yet, our major challenges are interrelated and require collaborative solutions. For all its shortcomings, we can’t give up on multilateralism, uncertainty must be addressed, and here International Standards are invaluable, offering a universal and quietly powerful means to support both.

Let’s be honest, multilateralism hasn’t been in great shape for some time. A post-Second World War construct, it’s served as a valuable – and at times potent – tool (think the Paris climate agreement or the WHO’s eradication of smallpox), but one whose flaws have become increasingly apparent. Arguably, the events of the past year, have simply brought things to the forefront. As the Global Risks Report highlights, we’re in an era where “a contested multipolar landscape is emerging where confrontation is replacing collaboration, and trust – the currency of cooperation – is losing its value.”

Few would contest this prognosis (at least we can agree on that!), but the reality is that no nation can go it alone in addressing global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss, health security, extreme poverty, technology governance, or food and water security. Facing this outlook, some form of cooperative behaviour, whether it’s increasing plurilateral, takes the form of coalitions of the willing, coopetition, strategic alliances, regional as opposed to global, or even intra-regional, has to fill the void left by 20th century-inspired multilateralism and its integral agencies.

The task then becomes finding ready – and ideally impartial – means to collaborate. Here International Standards come into their own for at least two distinct reasons. The first is that standards, are by design, created in a collaborative – if you like, multilateral – environment. It takes extensive research and expert debate, in which the voices of many stakeholders are consulted and their experiences taken into account, to create a standard. This is what makes them universally acceptable, giving them common currency the world over.

The second is that ISO International Standards support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the time of writing, there are more than 25,000 such standards. Looking at the SDGs, 16,729 standards feed into goal 9 alone (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), while 4,526 support goal 3 (good health and well-being), and further 4,054 help underpin goal 12 (responsible consumption and production). There are literally hundreds, and in several cases, thousands of ISO standards supporting every SDG – all acting as ready-made tools that make things happen. This means every time a standard is used, tangible progress towards those goals is being made. It’s that simple. 

International Standards also cast off the sense of uncertainty. If you use an International Standard, the quality of the process or product is guaranteed and the outcome assured. Looking at this in the context of trade, it’s evident that as globalization and multilateralism come under pressure, there is a shift towards the localization of production and regionalization of trade. Worldwide, International Standards ensure the quality and safety of products and processes, in turn, helping protect users and creating a sense of trust. 

Improved products and processes reduce waste, cut costs and contribute to growth, and with everyone working to the same standards, there is more of a level playing field for business. These same standards support and inform policy and regulation, which in turn, underpins operations. This boosts market access, simplifies compliance, enhances coordination, and ultimately enables trade.

Instead of falling prey to the divisions of our time, we should be using this debate to recast our ideas about cooperation with a mindset to create something both better suited to our modern-day challenges and ideally, more inclusive. 

There is also merit in looking beyond the fast-paced and very noisy headlines. This year’s Global Cooperation Barometer highlights that there has been little change, year-on-year, in the degree to which we’re cooperating, but that the composition of cooperation is altering. There are growing incidences of flexible, smaller arrangements, along with new instances of cooperation, particularly in AI and frontier technologies. Global goals are being combined, with the example given of energy security and decarbonization, and different regions – ASEAN and Europe, for example – are finding areas in which to work together towards common goals.

We can’t defer, ignore, or worse still, exacerbate the challenges we face, and for all the upheaval of the past 12 months, new alliances and avenues of cooperation have quickly filled the gaps created by the changing global order. Many gaps remain and it would be foolhardy to suggest a rosy outlook, but our focus should be on using the existing multilateral tools, like International Standards, that are tried, tested and importantly, universally accepted, to help support collaboration in these challenging times. 

ISO looks forward to continuing this dialogue at Davos 2026, where the role of International Standards as a foundation for practical, trusted cooperation will be at the heart of our engagement.