Toward an effective international legal order: from coexistence to concert?

In forbidding the use of force except in self‐defence against armed attack or when authorised by the Security Council, the UN Charter appears to be the culminating development of a system of international order based on the doctrine of state sovereignty. The cumulative result of international‐law‐related acts, omissions and declarations of the Bush administration since its inception can be construed as a fundamental challenge to the sovereign state system. The administration's stated security strategy is one possible response to undoubtedly grave challenges to national and human security. In fact, only an institutionalised partnership between the US and regional powers such as China, India, Brazil and Germany can hope to address those challenges successfully, in part because only it would have the requisite legitimacy. That partnership or concert could be organised within the UN framework, albeit intensifying its hierarchical elements.