The world is indeed changing! Even Bloomberg is now calling to "ditch the ‘Rules-Based International Order’", calling it "an Orwellian linguistic atrocity [that] when used by American diplomats in particular, makes US foreign policy look hypocritical".
bloomberg.com
Interestingly the author promotes the ideas of John Dugard, a professor of International Law in the Netherlands, as laid out in his fantastic paper on the Rules Based Order (cambridge.org), which is the best I've read on the subject and which I've myself posted about many times (e.g. x.com)
Dugard makes the case, repeated in the Bloomberg article, that the "US pushes its ‘Rules-Based International Order’ [RBIO] so hard precisely because it wants to avoid unreservedly endorsing, and obeying, an older, simpler and clearer idea: that of international law. [...] That’s why the Biden administration prefers the RBIO to international law... The RBIO doesn’t actually define rules as lawyers would. It has no tribunals or procedures for dispute settlement. Nor does it care whether countries opt in or out. Instead, the rules-based international order is malleable enough to hint at the existence of standards while allowing the US to assert its own national interests."
In short, as Dugard writes in his paper, the RBIO is "an order employed by the West, again particularly the United States, to ensure its dominance", with "rules [that] are tacit agreements between a handful of Western states". And in complete opposition to International Law.

Which is also why, by the way, I've repeated since the beginning of the war on Gaza that one key - if not THE key - prism through which one should read the conflict is that it's a fight between America's "rules-based order" and international law 👇
x.com