While the focus of the book is on the interstate use of force post-WWII, this chapter holds a rear mirror and offers a perspective of evolution of restraints that started long before states came into being. It recounts how human societies over the centuries became states free from widespread internal use of armed force and how great powers sought to avoid major armed conflicts through policies of balance of power and multilateral conferences. It describes how they developed common rules by concluding conventions and built institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations to create a rule-based order and mechanisms and methods to prevent the interstate use of force.

Chapter 1 reviews past scholarly ideals and political realities of a world constitution, focusing on the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Charter of the United Nations. It sketches out the core claims of the book according to which constitutional trends in world politics must be viewed with realistic skepticism and, in that light, can be understood in terms of a process called constitutionalization. This process does not generate the unified constitutional framework typically associated with national constitutions but manifests itself as an inadvertent by–product of piecemeal international treaty making driven by proximate objectives within issue–specific domains. The chapter then presents the major themes and limitations of the contemporary “constitutionalism beyond the state” debate and establishes how a social scientific perspective can add to this legal debate. It concludes with a preview of the book, emphasizing the main theoretical insights and empirical findings.