Wilhelm Grewe, in Epochen der Völkerrechtsgeschichte, argued that successive hegemons have shaped the foundations of the international legal system. In the sixteenth century, Spain redefined basic concepts of justice and universality so as to justify the conquest of indigenous Americans. In the eighteenth century, France developed the modern concept of borders, and the balance of power, to suit its principally continental strengths. In the nineteenth century, Britain forged new rules on piracy, neutrality, and colonialism – again, to suit its particular interests as the predominant power of the time.

As Shirley Scott points out in her contribution to this volume, Grewe did not claim that the changes wrought to the international legal system as a consequence of hegemony were necessarily planned or directed: “It was not that the dominant power controlled every development within the system during that epoch but that the dominant power was the one against whose ideas regarding the system of international law all others debated.” Nor did the changes occur abruptly: they were instead the result of a gradual process, as the international legal system adapted itself to the political realities of a new age.

Robert Keohane, in After Hegemony, demonstrated that the influence of dominant powers is considerably more complex than traditional international relations realists assumed, and that international regimes sometimes develop a life of their own that carries them forward after the influence of the hegemon wanes.