The Order That Took Centuries to Build: Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award Address

Christine Lagarde*

It is an honor to receive the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award from the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.  This is the first time that a central banker has received this award, which is dedicated to the memory of one of the most eminent legal scholars of his generation—as well versed in legal theory as he was in the practical realities of law. That said, I am a central banker with twenty-five years of experience in private international law.  So perhaps that helped me to qualify.

Looking back on my career, I have come to realize that the professions of law and central banking are not so different.  Lawyers and central bankers are ultimately merchants of trust.  Both law and money are institutional systems built on trust backed by authority.  Laws work because people believe in their legitimacy.  And money works because people believe it will be accepted as a future means of payment and broadly hold its value.  In that sense, I am among kindred spirits this evening.  Everyone here understands the importance of trust.

For that reason, you will also understand why it is so alarming when trust between nations begins to erode.  We hear a great deal today about a “new world order.” We are told that the old rules no longer apply, and that they were in any case merely a fig leaf—a convenient fiction that allowed the strong to dress up their interests in the language of law.  But before we accept this framing, we should examine it.  In fact, the so-called new world order has something in common with Voltaire’s famous quip about the Holy Roman Empire.  As he observed, it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. In much the same way, the new world order is not new: it is a return to older patterns of coercion and mercantilism.  It is not “world”:  Most countries do not want it and did not choose it.  And it is not an “order”:  It is the absence of one.

So tonight, I want to make the case for what is being dismantled.  I will argue three things.  First, that the international order was not an imposition of the strong on the weak.  It was built over centuries, by the powerful and the powerless alike.  Second, that despite the erosion of trust, the incentives for countries to cooperate remain strong.  And third, that the order can be sustained—not by clinging to the past, but through pragmatic reforms that reflect the world as it is.

*Christine Lagarde has been President of the European Central Bank and, in this function, also Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board since November 2019.  Between 2011 and 2019, she served as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.  Prior to that, she served as French Minister of Economy and Finance from 2007 to 2011, having been Trade Secretary from 2005 to 2007.  A lawyer by background, she practiced for twenty years with the international law firm Baker & McKenzie, of which she became Global Chair in 1999.  She was the first woman to hold each of these positions.  In 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, and 2024, President Lagarde was ranked the second most influential woman in the world by Forbes.  She has also been recognized by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.  In France, she was named Officer in the French Order of the Legion of Honor in April 2012 and Commander in the National Order of Merit in May 2021. She has also received decorations from other countries.