DI ANDREA CAPUTO
ABSTRACT – In these pages, the Author offers a summary report of the seminar held by Rein Müllerson on the current crisis of the international order. Two factors, according to Müllerson, hinder the proper functioning of international law, preventing it from realising the expectations that had been placed in it. First, the geopolitical reconfiguration of the world following the season of US hegemony after the collapse of the Soviet Union, whereby a situation of balance of power has been replaced by a condition that can be described as “the collective West against the collective rest”. Secondly, the tension between liberalism and democracy that in the Western world has led to the rise of populist movements that exploited the substantial absence of political leaders. In this framework is placed the reading of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which Müllerson more precisely understands as a Russia-NATO conflict.
KEYWORDS – International law – balance of power – war – crisis