This paper addresses the strategic partnerships that the EU seeks to set up with four important actors, whose ascent is changing traditional patterns of power and governance: Brazil, China, India and Russia. These partnerships, among other instruments, can play a critical role in reconciling multilateral governance and emerging multipolarity.

This volume focuses on multilateralism in the 21st century and examines how, and how effectively, the EU delivers on its commitment to effective multilateralism. Presenting results generated by MERCURY, an EU research programme into multilateralism, this book addresses a central research question: does the EU deliver on its commitment to effective multilateralism? Globalisation has created powerful new incentives for states to cooperate and has generated renewed interest in multilateralism. While a large body of work exists on multilateralism as a concept, it continues to be ill-defined and poorly understood. This book sheds new light on 21st century multilateralism by exploring conceptual approaches as well as generating innovative, empirical knowledge on its practice. Research on EU external relations has increasingly focused on the concept of ‘effective multilateralism’. Yet, the application of this concept as a guiding principle of EU foreign policy in non-security policy areas has rarely been examined. This book explores whether the EU is pursuing effective multilateralism in specific policy areas, including trade, climate change and conflict resolution, and distinct geographical and institutional settings, both internal to the EU and in specified regions, international organisations (IOs) and bilateral partnerships. This book offers evidence-based, actionable policy lessons from Europe’s experience in promoting multilateralism. The European Union and Multilateralism in the 21st Century will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, international organizations, and European Union politics and foreign policy.

This Paper offers some ideas on how the European Union and its member states can contribute to the reform of the United Nations. Five experts write on the following subjects: security and development (Sven Biscop), human rights and protection of the environment (Francesco Francioni), peacekeeping (Thierry Tardy), UN Security Council reform (Jeffrey Laurenti) and regional organisations and collective security (Kennedy Graham with Tânia Felício). A conclusion draws some lessons from the various chapters and suggests that the EU should be more involved in the UN reform process.

Existing theories of cooperation assume a stable geo-political order, led by countries with a shared conception of the modalities of cooperation. These assumptions are no longer justified. Effective Multilateralism makes the case for a new approach to explaining international cooperation through the lens of East Asian.

This volume focuses on multilateralism in the 21st century and examines how, and how effectively, the EU delivers on its commitment to effective multilateralism. Presenting results generated by MERCURY, an EU research programme into multilateralism, this book addresses a central research question: does the EU deliver on its commitment to effective multilateralism? Globalisation has created powerful new incentives for states to cooperate and has generated renewed interest in multilateralism. While a large body of work exists on multilateralism as a concept, it continues to be ill-defined and poorly understood. This book sheds new light on 21st century multilateralism by exploring conceptual approaches as well as generating innovative, empirical knowledge on its practice. Research on EU external relations has increasingly focused on the concept of 'effective multilateralism'. Yet, the application of this concept as a guiding principle of EU foreign policy in non-security policy areas has rarely been examined. This book explores whether the EU is pursuing effective multilateralism in specific policy areas, including trade, climate change and conflict resolution, and distinct geographical and institutional settings, both internal to the EU and in specified regions, international organisations (IOs) and bilateral partnerships. This book offers evidence-based, actionable policy lessons from Europe's experience in promoting multilateralism. The European Union and Multilateralism in the 21st Century will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, international organizations, and European Union politics and foreign policy.

In this paper I analyse in how far the 2016 EU Global Strategy (EUGS) has changed the European Union (EU)’s approach towards multilateralism compared to the approach under its predecessor, the 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS). I identify three major innovations: First, while the EUGS incorporates the EU’s long-standing commitment to ‘effective multilateralism’, its approach of ‘effective global governance’ goes beyond that earlier approach and represents a qualitatively different concept. Second, the EUGS transcends the ESS in terms of emphasising the need to transform rather than just to preserve the multilateral system. Third, the EUGS neglects traditional ‘strategic partnerships’ and expands the EU’s partnership approach towards engaging with a wider range of actors in a more pragmatic way. In a second step, I discuss the shortcomings of the new approach, which need to be addressed in the EUGS’s second year of implementation for which multilateralism has been chosen as a priority area. They include political and conceptual issues concerning the engagement with non-state actors and emerging powers as well as an unresolved dilemma in which individual EU member states must give up power to prevent the erosion of their collective influence and of the multilateral system at large.