This article is the English version of Philippa Webb
and Daisy Peterson, « Le droit dans l’ordre international », published in Politique étrangère (Vol. 91, No. 2, 2026) which celebrates the journal’s 90th anniversary.

In October 1998, against the backdrop of a decade scarred by the Balkan wars, the Rwandan genocide, and emerging conflicts in Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Judge Rosalyn Higgins observed that: “[c]haos appears to be all around us. It is hard not to share the sentiment that the international order today consists of disorder. And yet that disorder is surely not random, but is rather the consequence and result of the overall international system that obtains today. Chaos is an undeniable partof the international system, but certainly is not a satisfactory description ofthe international system”. She concluded that international law is a facilitating discipline, its purpose being “to assist in the achievement of an international stability that is consistent with justice and the realization of shared values”.

Writing more than a quarter of a century later, it is tempting simply to echo her opening words: chaos appears all around us. Today’s conflicts have multiplied from Ukraine to Gaza, from Sudan to Iran. In 2024, there were 61 active State-based conflicts—the highest number since 1946—and the highest level of conflict-related deaths in 30 years. Amid nuclear threats and a “new normal” of high conflict levels, the Doomsday Clock is at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to catastrophe. In the first three months of 2026 alone, the United States (U.S.) has withdrawn from 66 international organizations; launched a large-scale military operation in Caracas; captured the sitting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York to face trial on narco-terrorism charges; launched a joint military offensive with Israel against Iran; killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in airstrikes on Tehran; and launched joint military operations in Ecuador against designated terrorist organizations.

Read the rest of the article here.

Find the table of contents for the anniversary issue (No. 2/2026) of Politique étrangère here.

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