By way of conclusion, this chapter seeks to provide an overall assessment of what draws the Court and the Commission together, and of the impact that their “special relationship” has produced. In pulling the threads together, it explains that the interaction between the two organs has turned out differently to that which was originally envisaged, and that the great weight accorded by each of them to the work of the other has challenged the exclusive basis of State consent for international law’s validity. In a legal system that remains heavily dependent on unwritten rules of customary international law that require authoritative determination, the ultimate result has been that the Court and the Commission together assume a public order role not foreseen for either of them by their founders.

The accusation of ‘thirteen wasted years’ was first levelled against the Conservatives by Labour in 1964 about the period in office since 1951. To gain perspective on the years 2010–24, we open with an acknowledged authority assessing progress in the last fourteen years compared to what was achieved then. Kellner’s chapter will aim to synthesise the charge made about the ‘thirteen wasted years’ (1951-64) narrative and build the foundations of the analytical approach for the rest of this book by considering what governments abroad, notably in Europe, were achieving at the same time.

No country outside Britain has embraced Vaughan Williams’s music more warmly and extensively than the USA. The composer first visited in 1922 (extended stays followed in 1932 and 1954), but he had earlier developed a sympathy for American democratic ideals through intense involvement with Walt Whitman’s poetry. Vaughan Williams’s stature in America grew steadily from around 1920, when major works, most notably A London Symphony, began to be performed regularly, and it reached a zenith in the 1940s and 1950s, when he was widely regarded as a major international figure in the same league as Stravinsky or Bartók. While his American reputation echoed the deepening Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ that developed during the alliances of the Second World War and the Cold War, advocacy from a wide range of European émigrés such as Serge Koussevitzky and Bruno Walter indicates a broad appeal reaching well beyond any narrow notion of Anglo-Saxon kinship. Vaughan Williams’s profound engagement with folk song, modality, Whitman, and the symphony aligned particularly closely with prevailing trends in American music c. 1930–60, and his impact can be felt in the work of composers like Samuel Barber and Roy Harris; more recently, the admiration of John Adams, among others, indicates continuing relevance.

By 2024, the prime minister had emerged as the dominant figure in control of foreign policy, taking over the powers initially from the monarch, then Parliament, then the Foreign Secretary. The prime minister decides British foreign relations, whether the country goes to war, and how it is fought. This chapter will examine how and why this transition occurred, and why the prime minister today can afford to be more preoccupied with foreign rather than domestic policy, and what this has meant to the office and powers of the prime minister – even in the face of war and increasing geopolitical tension.

The chapter examines the different phases of the wartime ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the USA. Roosevelt’s initial contact with Churchill was born of the realisation that American security was tied to that of the UK but with the over-riding caveat that the USA would not become ‘a tail on the British kite’. Initially, Churchill worked hard to convince Roosevelt that Britain was serious about continuing the war, while FDR pursued a strategy of hemispheric defence. Co-operation then increased with Roosevelt developing a policy of all aid short of war. Pearl Harbor ushered in the high-water mark of the alliance, albeit with disagreements about strategy. FDR saw an opportunity to draw the English-speaking peoples together to create a new, multilateral world order that rejected imperialism, while Churchill saw the war as a means to restore the British Empire and perpetuate British power. Roosevelt’s pursuit of a bilateral relationship with Stalin led to a final phase of increasing tension. Ultimately, the special relationship that emerged from the war would become far more important in the UK than in the USA, yet it owed much to the two people’s shared belief in preserving democracy.

Farwell v. Keaton is the classic torts case that has introduced generations of law students to the “no-duty-to-rescue” rule which allows individuals to refrain from aiding persons in peril. The case is an exception, imposing a duty on a teenage boy who failed to come to the aid of his companion who died after being beaten by a group of boys. The court emphasized the relationship between the parties and the fact that the defendant had rendered some initial aid to his friend. The rewritten feminist opinion also imposes a duty but replaces the myriad common-law exceptions to the “no-duty-to-rescue” rule. Embracing a humanitarian approach based on the circumstantial connection between the parties in the case, the feminist judgment imposes liability whenever failure to do so would “shock the conscience,” placing US tort law on par with the law in many European nations. The accompanying commentary recharacterizes the case as one involving sexual harassment and stalking, focusing on the behavior of the defendant and his companion who set the chain of events in motion when they followed two teenaged girls who later complained to the assailants.

This chapter explores the underpinnings, development and impact of an ‘old Anglosphere coalition’. First, the chapter considers the nature of a coalition of the English-speaking countries at two levels: the Anglosphere, and its core USA–UK–Australia alliance. Second, the chapter explores the Anglosphere’s various underpinnings, linking nuanced but overlapping identities to shared language, cultural commonalities and intertwined histories, including racialised narratives and an enduring proclivity for expeditionary warfare. Here, the drivers of the Anglosphere are considered in full, despite the limitations of mainstream norms in the study of Politics, International Relations, and their subdisciplines. Third, the chapter considers the recent and contemporary implications of this alliance, setting the ground for the subsequent analysis of Anglosphere foreign policy in Syria.