Much writing on International Relations has pondered the implications of a very unequal distribution of power in the relations between states. There is a tradition in the West going back in part to decision-making mechanisms within the Holy Roman Empire and to practices of peace negotiations that gives each represented state-like entity a formally equal right to be heard, a custom that precedes the intra-state principle of one-citizen-one-vote that was to become the essential hallmark of democracy. This has culminated in the formal equality of all members of the United Nations (UN) in the General Assembly, a practice reflected also for decades in decision-making in the European Communities/European Union. Nevertheless, this theoretic equality of all states, the large and the small, stands in blatant contradiction of the differences in size, wealth, military and economic strength, or at least historic standing, reflected in the UN in the distribution of permanent seats of the Security Council or in membership of the Group of Seven/Eight. Diplomatic practice has always aimed to find a middle way between these conflicting considerations.