Multilateral Diplomacy and International Law: 19th Century Great Power Concert and the United Nations in a Comparative Perspective

This paper focuses on the comparative analysis of 19th century great power concert and the United Nations Security Council as forms of great power management of international affairs. The analysis is conducted from a cross-disciplinary perspective of international politics and international law. The paper explores historical preconditions for each of those forms of great power management to be formed and come into operation, as well as the way in which each of them became subjected to legal restraints in relation to its activities. These historical preconditions are both those which affirmatively enable great-power cooperation through multilateral crisis management, and ones that furnish risks should they not so cooperate, including the occurrence of a general war between great powers. The inter-disciplinary focus adopted here is meant to demonstrate the legal dimension of the matter as well as lessons that could be learned from the behaviour of statesmen and policy-makers.