The major European adversaries who fought World War I began by following offensive plans designed to win victory quickly, but all these failed. The war became one of grinding attrition, and by 1918, the European adversaries were exhausted. That year, the desperate Germans launched one last offensive to win the war on the Western Front, but it stalled. After the Allies drove the Germans back, fighting ended with the Armistice of November 11. This armistice was a German surrender in all but name. It disarmed German forces, demanded immediate withdrawal from all conquered territory, and imposed an Allied occupation of Germany west of the Rhine. The Treaty of Versailles elaborated the details, imposing staggering war reparations and German acceptance of guilt for the war itself. Much of the German population believed that German forces had not been defeated in battle, instead blaming German liberal politicians and Jews for undermining the war effort. This misconception contributed to the onset of World War II. World War I was the first war in which belligerents adhered to the Hague Conventions concerning the treatment of prisoners of war. There were abuses, but nothing like those that occurred in World War II.

This chapter examines the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) pivotal role in fostering peaceful change within global environmental governance over fifty years. UNEP’s inception at the Stockholm Conference, informed by scientific consensus and diplomatic foresight, marked a transformative approach to international collaboration for sustainability. This analysis employs a tridimensional framework – practical, political, and personal – to interrogate UNEP’s impact on environmental governance. It delves into the vision for UNEP at its foundational moment, its operational evolution, and its adaptive strategies in navigating the complex interplay of global power dynamics, from large powers to small states. The chapter highlights UNEP’s leadership in key environmental achievements, notably the reversal of ozone layer depletion and its emergent role in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. By focusing on UNEP’s trajectory and contributions, this narrative underscores the intricate ties between environmental protection and peace. The overarching theme emphasizes the necessity of continuous political mobilization and scientific engagement to address the urgent environmental crises of our time, echoing UNEP’s call for renewed, cooperative, and ecologically conscious global governance.

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.

The chapter starts from the premise that peaceful change can only be regarded as peaceful if it is founded on the shared understanding that the change being instituted is “good” – meaning that it is not incompatible with the vision of the “good life” of those who will be touched by the change. The chapter uses constructivist insights to establish if international organizations can be seen as agents of peaceful change, and if so, how and with what opportunities and limitations they are able to undertake action that can lead to peaceful change? The chapter focuses – perhaps counterintuitively – on NATO as an agent of peaceful change, demonstrating that even though NATO is widely perceived as an agent of repressive – even violent change – it has played an important role as an agent of peaceful change in the relations of its members and within the liberal international order. However, the chapter finds that the prospects of international organizations acting as agents of peaceful change outside their own domain are hampered by them being “sticky” and more likely to be guardians of the status quo rather than agents of change.

United Nations (UN) peace missions are meant to foster peace. However, slim progress has been observed in the states in which they have been recently deployed. If peace misions are effective in alleviating the suffering of the population on many fronts, the puzzle remains: To what extent are UN peace missions powerful instruments of peaceful change, given the persistent political coups and ensuing protests and violence in the receiving countries despite their presence? In this chapter, a constructivist, multilevel analytical approach is used to discuss how peace missions factor in peaceful change. A three-fold argument is made: While it can be demonstrated that UN peace missions are powerful instruments of peaceful change at the international level all the while mitigating crises on a regional basis, they do little to prevent/alleviate the continuation of violence at the national level. Using the examples of Sudan, Mali, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cyprus, this chapter examines how UN peace missions are instruments of change, yet their peaceful effect depends on whether one takes into account the national, regional, or international level factors.

This book has investigated trilogues as the democratic secret of European legislation. To this end, it has proceeded in two steps. The first step has been analytical in nature, in that it has described and reconstructed the law and practice of European legislation through a close engagement with the relevant normative sources (Chapters 1–3). The second step has been partly doctrinal and partly theoretical (Chapters 4–6). It has been doctrinal, to the extent that it has sought to capture and give distinctive meaning to “informality,” as both a key concept of EU law and an essential feature of trilogues. It has been theoretical, to the extent that it has discussed, appraised, and legitimized trilogues in the light of theories of public authority and democracy beyond the nation state. In this second step, the line of reasoning has also benefitted from a comparative chapter, which has thrown into sharper relief the advantages of a legislative process based on trilogues.