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Abstract

History will tell whether the Iraqi crisis will have constituted a challenging of the United Nations Organization (UNO), of its role and of its use within the international system. Indeed, the UNO has proven both its resistance to events and its capacity to last as a foundation of the international system. However, due to the unilateralist practices of some of its member States and as a result of a system which is struggling with the idea of in-depth reform, the question of its legitimacy and of its authority has been debated openly if not brutally, throughout this last year. In spite of this, it is however not certain that the time for in-depth reform of all aspects of the United Nations system has arrived.

Alexandra Novosseloff works at the French Ministry of Defense.