The significance of what now seems to be the unstoppable move towards a US occupation of Iraq lies in the punishing blow it will deal the system of post-Cold war multilateral institutions. Consequently, the clash with Iraq has implications that reach beyond the issue of weapons of mass destruction. The weapons inspections are a mere sideshow to the main event: the constitution of a new international political system anchored around the US. What we are witnessing is a profound change to what may be termed the UN multilateral system. We are seeing the weakening of formal political equality for all states, violations of notions of collective security embodied in the UN charter, and above all, threats to widely accepted notions of international law through increasingly broad definitions of war and self-defence. True, these principles were more often than not observed in the breach, but nonetheless they provided the founding motifs of the post-World War II system of global governance. The point is that it is simply not possible to talk of international law when the institutional legitimacy on which that law depends has been battered. And the outcome seems irretrievable because whatever becomes of resolution 1441 calling for Iraq to disarm, the underlying reality is that the UN Security Council has only two options: accept the US position or accept the fact the US will act regardless. In either case the UN is redundant. Then the real significance of the US-Iraq conflict is that it will rip the heart out of this system of international governance. No fig leaf will cover this gaping injury. Of course, these underlying shifts in the system of global governance have been gaining momentum since the end of the Cold War, the first Gulf War and the Balkan intervention, aided by the transformation of global capitalism over the past two decades. But September 11 and the arrival of neo-conservative hawks in the current Bush administration serve to effectively give a terminal kick in the guts to the UN system. Therefore, it is inevitable that a new system of international governance will take shape. One thing is clear: this system of governance is likely to be centred around the power of the US. The post-September 11 US Patriot Act cements the power of presidential, or executive, discretion. At the same time, there has been an even more pronounced tendency to exercise executive discretion outside the normal framework of multilateral institutions and principles. What are some of the features of this new system of global governance? First, there is likely to be an increasing shift towards the management of risk in the international system. Governance is likely to mean increasing control, management, and monitoring of the hotspots of international risk, be they terrorism, money laundering, or drug trafficking. Risk management, in this context, accentuates the importance of controlling potential sites of risk and insecurity. It is in this context that the Bush administration's enunciated strategy of pre-emptive strikes becomes such a pivotal facet in America's new global strategy. Clearly, the new system's core features will depart significantly from the UN-based multilateral system. In fact, it could be argued that this leads to the creation of a new type of international law and order state that parallels the extensive law and order state that has emerged in the US in recent decades. Increasingly this global law and order state serves to embody a new contractual form of sovereignty, one which is predicated on the need to meet vaguely defined international standards or policies. A striking example of this comes not from a member of the Bush administration, but from Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, who in a speech at the University of Birmingham last year, noted that many states do not match the capabilities expected of them under international law. He went on to argue, for this reason, that we need to understand what he calls the 'risk of state failure' and develop appropriate policies and law. The point here is that international law becomes nothing more than a surrogate for a vaguely defined set of standards which, says Mr Straw, may include such elements as the levels of effective governance. Further, it is unclear exactly what and who is to decide when states are put at risk. More especially, this new 'contractual sovereignty' contrasts sharply with the inherent political equality of states (though with qualifications) and the formal culture of international law around which the post-war multilateral system was predicated. At the same time, this contractual sovereignty is set to be underpinned by a new ethical code of international relations. This ethical turn reduces complex political issues to one of moral and ethical responsibility. The real danger with this new moralism is that it obscures the underlying antagonism and conflict that pervade international politics, transforming it into a series of moral fables to be repeated at length as part of the emerging theology of British leader Tony Blair and George W. Bush. Clearly, the system of global governance being pursued by the current US administration brings its own challenges: keeping allies on board, meeting financial burdens and striking the balance between coercion and persuasion in pursuing a global agenda. Yet, there can be no simple return to the UN-based multilateral system. As such, it is incumbent on critics to articulate a more democratic alternative. Kanishka Jayasuriya is associate professor in politics and social administration at the City University of Hong Kong JANY04GET