1945’s Forgotten Insight: Multilateralism as Realist Necessity

Main author: Plesch, Dan
Other authors: Weiss, Thomas G.
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-21329
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description The 70th anniversary of the signing and entry into force of the UN Charter provided an occasion to explore the historical underpinnings of contemporary global governance. This article redresses the neglect of the United Nations as a multilateral structure before the conference that drafted the Charter in 1945. It rehabilitates an underappreciated aspect of the period that began on January 1, 1942, with the “Declaration by United Nations,” namely, the combination of multilateral strategies for military and human security to achieve victory in war and peace. The wide substantive and geographic resonance suggests the extent to which the pressures of the second war to end all wars helped states to overcome their disinclination to collaborate. Today’s fashionable calls for “good enough” global governance abandon the strategy of constructing robust intergovernmental organizations; they are not good enough, especially, because our forebears did much better. Many insights and operational approaches from 1942 to 1945 remain valid for addressing twenty-first-century global challenges.
format Journal Article
author Plesch, Dan
author_facet Plesch, Dan
Weiss, Thomas G.
authorStr Plesch, Dan
author_letter Plesch, Dan
author2 Weiss, Thomas G.
author2Str Weiss, Thomas G.
title 1945’s Forgotten Insight: Multilateralism as Realist Necessity
publisher Oxford University Press
publishDate 2015
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/21329/