Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Concepts
- Part III Histories: Great Powers
- 4 Legalised hegemony: from Congress to Conference 1815–1906
- 5 ‘Extreme equality’: Rupture at the Second Hague Peace Conference 1907
- 6 The Great Powers, sovereign equality and the making of the United Nations Charter: San Francisco 1945
- 7 Holy Alliances: Verona 1822 and Kosovo 1999
- Part IV Histories: Outlaw States
- Part V Conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index
7 - Holy Alliances: Verona 1822 and Kosovo 1999
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Concepts
- Part III Histories: Great Powers
- 4 Legalised hegemony: from Congress to Conference 1815–1906
- 5 ‘Extreme equality’: Rupture at the Second Hague Peace Conference 1907
- 6 The Great Powers, sovereign equality and the making of the United Nations Charter: San Francisco 1945
- 7 Holy Alliances: Verona 1822 and Kosovo 1999
- Part IV Histories: Outlaw States
- Part V Conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In each of the three moments of regime building discussed in the previous chapters, a tension between sovereign equality and legalised hegemony has been the mark of a foundational moment in the development of the international legal order. In the early nineteenth century, the Great Powers established the institution of legalised hegemony through the procedures and substantive law of the Congress of Vienna (Chapter 4). The Concert of Europe began as a ‘usurpation’ but ended by legitimising hegemony and endowing it with an institutional respectability it had hitherto lacked. The idea of legalised hegemony seemed to have, at least for the time being, and despite the exertions of some of the smaller powers, trumped the Westphalian principle of sovereign equality. Throughout the nineteenth century, public international lawyers wrestled with this new phenomenon. Some rejected hegemony as ‘illegal’ or ‘political’, others viewed it as a new constitutional norm. At the same time, in international legal practice, legalised hegemony, in the uncompromised form found at Vienna, was, by the late nineteenth century, giving way to a more participatory and egalitarian international legal order (Chapter 4). In particular, the newly admitted smaller states began agitating for greater representation in international institutions (Chapter 9). The Great Powers, however, were not disposed to give up too much of their authority.
This tension culminated in a moment of crisis at the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Great Powers and Outlaw StatesUnequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order, pp. 194 - 224Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004