90e anniversaire – Blog Politique étrangère

Law and the International Order

On 24/08/2026

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”.

The Year He Woke

de Politique Etrangère

On 06/08/2026

dans PE in english

This article is the English version of Vikas Swarup, « L’année de son réveil », published in Politique étrangère (Vol. 91, No. 2, 2026) which celebrates the journal’s 90th anniversary.

When Ray Mehta opened his eyes, he saw light.

Not the hard light of a hospital. Winter light. Pale and level. It came through a wide pane of glass. Beyond it stood a mountain, solitary and white at the summit, its dark stone face rising clean into a sky of improbable blue.

He looked at it for some time before he tried to move.

Then he turned his head and took in the room.

It was spare in the way expensive things are spare. White walls. Rounded corners. A bed, a chair, a narrow table. No wires. No steel stands. No flowers. No clutter of medicine. The room had been designed to suggest serenity to someone who had paid for it in advance.

His mouth was dry. He swallowed. For a moment he did not know whether the procedure had succeeded or failed. Then a woman spoke.

The Crises Testing Arms Control

de Politique Etrangère

On 03/08/2026

dans PE in english

This article is the English version of Patricia M. Lewis, « La maîtrise des armements à l’épreuve des crises », published in Politique étrangère (Vol. 91, No. 2, 2026) which celebrates the journal’s 90th anniversary.

The events of recent years have opened a pause for reflection on the role that arms control has played in the wider effort of international, collective security over the last 80 years.

In the context of Russia’s brutal land-grab war against Ukraine since 2022 and yet another horrendous conflict in the Middle East, the shocking United States (US) pull-back from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN), including the proposals of invading Greenland and Canada, has increased an already high sense of insecurity and fears of conflict escalation throughout the world.