Why Multilateralism Still Matters for Small Countries
If you’re a small country, what do you do when bigger countries can just push you around? You team up. You play smart. You make yourself useful. That’s basically the entire playbook that Burhan Gafoor lays out in Chapter 12.
This is part of my retelling of “50 Years of Singapore and the United Nations” (Tommy Koh, Li Lin Chang, Joanna Koh, 2015, ISBN: 978-9814713030).
The UN Wasn’t Built to Create Paradise
Gafoor starts with a great quote from Dag Hammarskjold, the second UN Secretary-General: “The UN was not created to take humanity to heaven but to save it from hell.” That’s a pretty honest mission statement. The UN was never designed to solve every problem on the planet. It’s a place where countries can talk instead of fight. A forum for managing tensions in a world where everyone depends on everyone else.
For small countries like Singapore, the UN matters for three big reasons. First, it creates rules that everyone has to follow. Second, it gives small countries a place to make friends and build influence. Third, it lets small countries play a bigger role on the world stage than their size would normally allow.
Let’s go through each one.
Reason 1: Rules Protect Small Countries
The UN Charter says all states are equal. It says countries should resolve disputes peacefully. It says you don’t meddle in another country’s business. These aren’t just nice words on paper. They create a system where “might is right” doesn’t fly. At least not without consequences.
Can the UN stop a big country from doing what it wants? Not always. Big countries still act on their own when it suits them. But the UN puts pressure on every country to explain and justify its actions. If a country breaks the rules, the international community can respond. That matters a lot when you’re small.
Singapore has a strong interest in making this rules-based system even stronger. More treaties, more norms, more guidelines. A good example is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Professor Tommy Koh chaired the conference that created it, and Professor S. Jayakumar (who later became Foreign Minister) played a key role too. UNCLOS governs how countries behave at sea. For an island nation like Singapore, that’s a big deal.
Gafoor himself chaired a diplomatic conference at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2006. It produced a treaty about simplified trademark registration procedures. Fun fact: it’s called the Singapore Treaty, and it’s the only international treaty named after Singapore.
Reason 2: Climate Change Shows How This Works
This is where the chapter gets really interesting. Gafoor was Singapore’s Ambassador and Chief Negotiator for climate change at the UN. Climate negotiations are one of the biggest rule-making exercises in the world right now. And for a small island country, the stakes are very real.
But here’s the tricky part. Singapore is vulnerable to climate change. Rising sea levels are a direct threat. So Singapore wants a strong global agreement on cutting emissions. At the same time, Singapore is a small city-state with an export-driven economy. A badly designed agreement could hurt Singapore badly.
Before the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, many developed countries wanted a simple formula: cut emissions based on per capita GDP or per capita carbon emissions. Sounds fair, right? Not for Singapore. That kind of “cookie-cutter” approach would punish small, efficient economies. And it would let developed countries off the hook for all the pollution they’d already pumped into the atmosphere over decades.
Ambassador Chew Tai Soo (the same diplomat who created the Forum of Small States) led the initial fight against this approach. When Gafoor took over in 2010, he kept pushing the same message. Singapore argued that GDP alone doesn’t tell you how much a country can realistically reduce its emissions. Singapore already runs an energy-efficient economy. No fuel subsidies. Almost no access to alternative energy sources. Electricity comes from natural gas, which is cleaner than coal or oil. And Singapore serves as a refining hub for petroleum that gets used elsewhere, not domestically.
Instead of per capita formulas, Singapore pushed for a framework based on “national circumstances.” Let each country set its own targets based on what it can actually do. This approach would raise ambition because every country could participate, not just the ones that fit neatly into a formula.
It took years. Gafoor says one of the biggest lessons he learned is that in multilateral diplomacy, you have to explain your ideas again and again. You lobby constantly. You do outreach. It’s slow and patient work. But eventually, the “national circumstances” approach got endorsed at the Warsaw Climate Conference in 2013. That was a real win.
Reason 3: Making Friends Through Numbers
The UN is a networking platform. Small countries can multiply their strength by working with others. Gafoor puts it simply: multilateral diplomacy lets smaller countries gain strength through numbers.
In the 1990s, small island nations banded together to form the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Singapore joined early. These countries, mostly from the Pacific, Caribbean, and Indian Ocean, remain important friends for Singapore decades later.
Around the same time, Singapore created the Forum of Small States (FOSS), which Ambassador Chew Tai Soo started. With over 100 member countries, FOSS gives small states real political weight at the UN.
Gafoor shares a personal story about the power of relationships. In 2005, he was lobbying for support on a statement defending countries’ right to impose capital punishment. The argument was that capital punishment is a criminal justice issue, not a human rights issue. That year, they got the highest number of supporters ever. Why? Partly because of active lobbying by Singapore diplomats worldwide. But also because several African countries signed on based on their personal relationship with Gafoor himself.
Lord Palmerston said there are no permanent friends in international relations, only permanent interests. Gafoor says that’s true but incomplete. Personal relationships built on trust can absolutely swing votes and secure support.
Reason 4: Building Bridges in the Chaos
Multilateral diplomacy is messy. Gafoor doesn’t sugarcoat it. You’ve got over 100 countries in any given negotiation. Each has its own agenda. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. There are disagreements, delays, and personality clashes. Small countries have to navigate carefully or get crushed.
But that chaos also creates opportunity. When negotiations get stuck, someone needs to bridge the gap. A neutral, credible party that different groups will trust. Singapore often gets tapped for this role.
Gafoor gives a concrete example. In 2010, the UNFCCC asked him to facilitate negotiations on climate finance. This was one of the most controversial issues in all of climate diplomacy. Singapore was seen as a credible bridge between rich and poor countries. Gafoor identified common elements in what seemed like an impossible discussion. Those common elements became part of the decision at the Cancun Climate Conference in 2010 and led to the creation of the Green Climate Fund.
Another example from 2012: climate negotiations hit a wall because countries couldn’t even agree on an agenda. They spent an entire week negotiating a one-page list of topics. As Gafoor puts it, “it was a negotiation about what to negotiate.”
The agenda fight was really a proxy for deeper disagreements about substance. Singapore’s own interests were at stake, but the deadlock was hurting everyone. So Gafoor jumped in. He offered suggestions during late-night meetings. On the final day, hours before the session was supposed to end, he put forward a compromise: a footnote to the agenda that assured every group their right to raise issues wouldn’t be limited by what was on the agenda. It was “broadly acceptable to many and grudgingly accepted by some.” Good enough. The meeting ended on a successful note, and Singapore’s reputation as a constructive player grew even more.
The Full Toolbox
Gafoor ends with an honest point. Multilateral diplomacy isn’t just about being the nice bridge-builder. That’s one tool. Sometimes you build allies and rally support. Sometimes you show firmness and block outcomes that would hurt your country. Sometimes you have to stand your ground even when it’s uncomfortable.
The goal is always shaping outcomes that protect your country’s interests. When a diplomat can do that while also moving the whole process forward? That’s the best feeling in the job.
About the Author
Burhan Gafoor served as High Commissioner of Singapore to Australia at the time of writing. Before that, he was Ambassador and Chief Negotiator for Climate Change. He also served as Ambassador to France (with concurrent accreditation to Portugal), Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva and the WTO, and Press Secretary to Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. He joined Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1988, holds degrees from the National University of Singapore, Harvard’s Kennedy School, and France’s Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA). He received Singapore’s Public Administration Medal (Silver and Gold) and France’s Grand Officier de l’Ordre National du Merite.
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