The United Nations on Shifting Sands: About the Rebuilding of Iraq

Abstract

There are various ways of assessing the importance of Resolution 1483 (2003), adopted on 22 May 2003 in the aftermath of very troubling times for the international community. The US, the United Kingdom and a group of other states had conducted a war in Iraq the end-result of which was the falling apart of the regime led by Saddam Hussein. The United Nations system had been put aside during that period because of strong discord among member states with respect to the necessity and the legality of resorting to force. It is not the purpose of this contribution to enter into the debate on legality versus illegality of the resort to force in this con ict, or on the relationship between legality and legitimacy, where the latter concept is used to justify the use of force because of the “unacceptable” consequences of not doing so. The war has put the well-being of the international system itself and its governance regime for collective security issues under severe strain and this effect is not going to disappear overnight. The founders of the UN system had put in place a regime for maintaining international peace and security. One of its main axes was the prevention to resort to force, except in very speciŽ c circumstances. The Security Council (SC) was to be at the heart of this regime and was equipped with decision-making and enforcement powers. Practice had already eroded some of the contours of this regime. However the great divide among the SC member states during the Iraqi crisis and the fact that a coalition of states went ahead, supposedly on legal grounds, shook it to its foundations. The result was the irrelevance of the UN in the conduct of the hostilities as well as its marginalization in the rebuilding of Iraq in the aftermath of the con ict.