The Fraught Development of an International Peace Architecture

There remain a range of long-standing questions for the following exploration of the evolution and integrity of the international peace architecture. Can human ingenuity shape the evolution of political order, perhaps though new social, economic, and technological advances, which will finally, after millennia of debate and effort, solve the problem of historical and geographical unevenness, unwieldy power, injustice, difference and socio-political exclusion? Can all of these features of international order be balanced in ways which are progressive and solidarist in a global if not universal system directly connected to civil and subaltern claims? In other words, given the new theoretical and ethical insights of IR and broadly related disciplines, the work of progressive international lawyers over a century, of peace movements, and liberal or socialist political projects, as well as the swathes of new technology and material capacity available to the world’s policymakers, is it possible to develop an ethical order of peace, emancipation, solidarity, and justice, which will transcend those of older approaches and policies to peace, the state, and the international? Furthermore, is it possible to prevent this agency for peace from being hijacked by small groups of powerful elites? How is the resultant international peace architecture framed, how has and is it evolving, and what are its deficiencies? This final chapter outlines the dynamics of the evolving international peace architecture over the last century and new avenues to be considered for the future of peacebuilding.