Introduction: The Multilateral Politics of UN Diplomacy

Abstract:

Since the end of the Cold War, more and more players are influencing multilateral processes and agreements.

While the role of ‘rising powers’, such as Brazil, India and China, has attracted considerable attention, little has been written about the role of groupings in multilateral processes, and in particular the extent to which regional or political groups are functioning as cohesive blocs at the United Nations (un).

Yet diplomats who are involved in multilateralism frequently work within groups, as Ioannis Vrailas, former Deputy Head of the European Union’s delegation to the United Nations in New York, notes in his article for this special issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy on multilateral diplomacy at the un.

Diplomats engaged in the recurring climate-change debates, for example, have worked through regional groupings like the European Union (eu), as well as single-issue groups such as the Small Island Developing States (sids) or the Alliance of Small Island States (aosis), both of which have at various times been central in the negotiations.