Great Power Multilateralism and the Prevention of War

Great-­power conflict and great­-power war are still the most danger­ous risks the inter­national community is facing today. This edited volume investi­gates the feas­ibility of a modern day concert of powers as a way for manag­ing the risk of great power conflicts in the 21st century. The volume takes its inspi­ration from history.

The 19th century Euro­pean Concert was not only able to en­sure a period of ex­ceptional peace­ful­ness among the Euro­pean great powers, it also limited the scope and duration of the few wars that did break out. The chapter authors discuss the achieve­ments and limits of the histori­cal concert, define the require­ments that a new concert would have to meet, criti­cally evaluate obstacles and risks of the approach and indicate how a 21st century concert of powers could comple­ment, and fit into, the present legal and insti­tutional setting of global politics.

This volume offers a system­atic exami­nation of the norms and tools of the hist­orical template and scrutinizes these tools for their utility in our time. It will be of great interest to a wide range of scholars and students in areas such as Inter­national Relations, History and Inter­national Law.