The overview of the book’s argument provides a framework for understanding the relationship between fiscal policy, sovereignty, and Renaissance English literature. It examines the challenges of sovereign authority in the period, especially the fiscal responsibilities of rulers and the potential for political instability due to taxation. The chapter draws parallels between historical and contemporary debates on taxation, emphasizing fiscal policy’s role in shaping collective security and wellbeing. It delves into the complexities of funding sovereignty in early modern England, highlighting the tension between necessary taxation and perceived fiscal aggression. The chapter introduces the idea of a "fiscal security dilemma," in which efforts to ensure security through taxation can paradoxically create insecurity and concludes with an overview of the book’s chapters and the variety of ways literary writers engaged with the struggle over fiscal policy as central to defining political community and governance in Renaissance England.

After the Second World War, ambitions to develop a collective security arrangement among Western allies for the defence of the South-East Asia region started to emerge from many quarters. Australia and New Zealand began planning for a security alliance that would include regional nations as well as foreign powers, and Britain’s attention returned to supporting the defence of its colonial possessions. Australia and New Zealand did not achieve a security alliance initially, and defence planning in the immediate postwar years rested on a negotiated agreement focused on the British Commonwealth.

This chapter examines the Soviet theory and practice of international law during the interwar period. Soviet writers of international law such as Korovin, Pashukanis and Vyshinsky developed a Soviet theory of international law which reflected Soviet revolutionary practice. However, as the practice changed over time, Soviet scholars also came to different conclusions and sometimes vehemently disagreed with each other about the right course. The main question which preoccupied them was whether universal international law was still possible after the birth of the first state of the proletariat. While the Soviets rhetorically proposed innovations to international law – the recognition of self-determination, the end to unequal treaties with non-European nations, etc. – they had difficulties implementing these principles in their own practice. A part of the chapter is dedicated to an analysis of the Soviet Union’s membership in the League of Nations from 1934 to 1939 which ended with the country’s expulsion from the organisation soon after the conclusion of the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the aggression against Finland at the end of 1939.

Both the theoretical and practical roots of contemporary preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking trace back to the League of Nations. Starting with the Vilna dispute in 1920, the League organised collective action on several occasions, achieving varying degrees of success in different parts of the world. Although the League was ultimately unsuccessful in its overarching objective of preventing another global conflict, its results in preventing local conflicts from erupting or escalating have been unduly neglected. Furthermore, although a theoretical framework for preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking would not be developed until many decades after the League had dissolved, its basic contours may be found already in the work and reflections of the organisation’s bodies and functionaries. This chapter analyses the League’s pioneering work in an attempt to present the organisation’s own contribution and better understand these phenomena in light of their early iterations.

The UN General Assembly, a body including representatives of all UN member governments, serves as the primary forum for defining a better world order through peaceful change. It has endorsed programs of peaceful change at all levels of ambition at different times and on different issues. Much of its activity has focused on the minimalist goal of averting or ending particular wars. On other issues, most notably decolonization, national economic development, and adding environmental concerns to the intergovernmental agenda, it has contributed to incremental change in the states system. Yet the limits on what governments would endorse became clear on issues such as human rights where changes would affect domestic political orders. The end of the Cold War and related domestic-level political changes provided the context for higher ambition, which peaked in 2005 when the General Assembly endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs offered a vision of deep peace in which universal respect for human rights, human development, and human security prevail within ecologically sustainable societies. Yet the subsequent spread of authoritarian rule within states and increased geopolitical tensions between major states have reinforced governments’ traditional approaches to states system, reducing the ambition of programs for peaceful change.

This chapter examines the historical evolution of great powers’ efforts to manage their relations, foster international orders, and promote processes of peaceful change in international relations through the use of international organizations since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The focus is on the mechanisms and dynamics of balances of power, concert, and collective security, as reflected in the practices of IOs, including diplomatic congresses and conferences of the nineteenth century, the League of Nations, and the United Nations since 1945. The main research question remains: Under which conditions do great powers use international organizations to promote processes of peaceful change in international relations? The relevant conditions include: a stable and agreed systemic distribution of power among the great powers; a certain degree of normative consensus among them; and a minimal agreement upon the “rules of the game” in the management of international relations. Among the findings drawn from the historical record, we can conclude that great powers tend to be status quo-oriented, and that IOs might thrive, prosper, and affect the behavior of great powers when the three basic conditions are in place.

Maritime security, also known as non-military security, refers to a condition in which the maritime rights and interests of a State, recognised by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other rules of international law, are free from harm, danger or attack. This chapter discusses seven acknowledged threats to maritime security in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and the international legal framework for addressing them. The seven threats are piracy and armed robbery against ships; terrorist acts involving shipping, offshore installations and other maritime interests; illicit trafficking in arms and weapons of mass destruction; illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances; smuggling and trafficking of persons by sea; illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; and intentional and unlawful damage to the marine environment. The discussion then turns to the measures coastal States can take to protect their maritime security interests in the EEZ in the context of the longstanding doctrine of exclusive flag State jurisdiction. The concluding section examines emerging international efforts to combat threats to maritime security on a regional basis and discusses a potential solution to treat maritime security in the EEZ as collective security interests to meet the jurisdictional gap.

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the ethics and laws of war. The first part outlines what international law and the ‘just war’ tradition say about war; the second explores the conduct of war; and the third examines two recent dilemmas as examples of moral and legal debate: the legitimacy of pre-emptive self-defence and the use of cluster bombs.

This chapter introduces the concept and practice of security in international relations. It explores the dilemmas faced by states, individuals and the global community by first looking at contemporary crises and disagreements about security; second, examining how security has been differently defined and focused; and third, surveying how different theoretical approaches have understood and analysed security.

This chapter examines sub-systemic actor’s duties. It treats NATO as indicative of a collective defence organization and the European Union (before the Lisbon treaty that contains two collective defence clauses) as indicative of a collective security organization. This chapter argues that NATO has, if requested to help by a member country, a contractual (Article 5) – and thus overriding – duty to protect a member state, and when must cause is satisfied, with securitization. It is argued that Article 5 is now somewhat outdated and that – going forward – just reason (i.e., the existence of an objective existential threat) + macro-proportionality, and not armed attack, should be the threshold for collective political action. The obligation to use securitizing measures, however, rests with the satisfaction of must cause. This chapter also argues that in collective security organizations, the obligation to securitize insiders, rests with remedial responsibility triggered by ties of community/friendship, this means that unlike in collective defence organizations, the obligation to securitize insiders can be overridden.

In this chapter, Nigel White assesses the contribution of the UN’s collective security system to the settlement of international disputes. This chapter tests the assumption that impartial law-based dispute settlement by the Security Council is neither achievable because of its political nature nor required by the UN Charter. This chapter analyses the provisions of the Charter and practice of the Security Council in the field of peaceful settlement, looking for evidence of impartiality in both inter-State and intra-State disputes and assessing the influence of peacekeeping mandated by the Council upon impartiality. This analysis shows that the concept of impartiality in peaceful settlement has largely disappeared and asks, in the conclusion, whether it is possible and desirable to (re)turn to impartiality.

Without falling into the Keynesian trap of implying the entire settlement was created in President Wilson’s ‘hot, dry room’, this chapter acknowledges the central role of the Big Four at the Paris Peace Conference in providing a decision-making forum to which many of the most contentious issues were referred. Their ideas, conflicting ambitions and interactions helped to shape the peace. Wilson and Lloyd George, who largely shared a Gladstonian liberal philosophy, advocated self-determination, disarmament, trade and a new international order based on a League of Nations, though this did not prevent significant clashes between them over reparations and naval construction. Clemenceau pursued a more traditional, though potentially incompatible, policy of alliances and territorial adjustments to counter what he perceived to be a continuing threat from a neighbour with larger resources and a more dynamic demographic. Orlando’s vision was focused more closely on Italy and its European context, though not without imperial aspirations. Keynes dismissed him in a sentence and footnote but Italy had an important part in the negotiations and compromises, which moulded the settlement drafted by the Four and their colleagues. The extent, however, to which a ‘New Diplomacy’ had overtaken the old remained moot.

This chapter covers the international law governing the use of force between states – the jus ad bellum. This is in contrast to the jus in bello – the law of armed conflict, or international humanitarian law – which regulates the conduct of hostilities once under way (see Chapter 11). Since at least 1945 the use of force by states has been prohibited, except in self-defence or when authorised by the United Nations Security Council. This chapter analyses the prohibition, the two exceptions, and the controversial issue of humanitarian intervention and its close relative, the ‘responsibility to protect’.

How can force be used to pursue human security? Treatments of this issue are surprisingly rare.  This chapter addresses the potentially positive uses of force to address basic human needs under the new doctrine of human security in international law.   International laws, cases, and regimes addressing the constituent elements of human security are addressed in turn: personal and political security, economic, food, health, community and environmental security. The evolving structure and function of UN Peacekeeping Operations is demonstrated through cases of specific missions. Finally, the possibilities of 2001’s "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine are debated.

Any government that wants to be taken seriously needs teeth. This chapter sketches a global security system in which national governments will still play a key role, but in which they have also worked together to create stable mechanisms of collective security. Since it is impossible to coerce nuclear-armed Great Powers through direct military action, the new global security system will need an especially robust regime of economic sanctions. If a Great Power transgresses international laws in egregious ways, such sanctions would aim to persuade the leaders of that nation that the costs of continued violations greatly exceed the benefits. In extreme cases, such sanctions could also aim to destabilize a transgressor nation’s economy so severely that its citizens would be impelled to bring about regime change from within. If such a global security system were in place for many decades, successfully keeping the peace, then incremental steps toward reductions in standing armies could be gradually undertaken. The resulting “peace dividend” could be used to further reduce global economic disparities, and to help fund the technologies for mitigating climate change.

This chapter focuses specifically on the Council’s contribution to the international law on the use of force (the jus ad bellum), an area of international law that is central to the Security Council’s role in the maintenance of international peace and security and the collective security system of the United Nations. The chapter addresses, first, the general state of the rules of international law on the use of force (the jus ad bellum). It then outlines the rules themselves. This is followed by sections relating directly to the Security Council: the prohibition of the use of force; the use of force by or authorized by the Council; the Council and the right of self-defence; and the Council and ‘humanitarian intervention’ and ‘responsibility to protect’.