‘The prohibition of the use of force is a peremptory norm of law that was enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, after having been incompletely enunciated in the Covenant of the League of Nations and then in the Briand Kellogg Pact’. Declined in various forms, this is the account found in the vast majority of contemporary doctrine. In her book, Agatha Verdebout not only questions the relevance of this narrative of ‘indifference’ (i.e., the use of force would have been neither prohibited nor authorized by international law) but also explains its emergence and success.