September 25, 2024 - 7:00am
My old boss Ban Ki-moon, former secretary-general of the United Nations, was fond of remarking to anyone who would listen: “SG also stands for scapegoat.” That’s because if anything went wrong regarding matters of global peace and security, it would inevitably be laid at the UN’s door — and that of the secretary-general in particular.
Fast-forward to this week, as the UN General Assembly convenes in New York, and incumbent Secretary-General António Guterres must contend with a brewing crisis in Lebanon, not to mention a series of long-running conflicts around the world. What can he say to persuade member states that the UN Charter can still be upheld in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in war-torn Ukraine, and now potentially in Lebanon?
In each case, the permanent members of the UN Security Council have shown contempt for the Charter, and have repeatedly undermined and refused to accept the most basic tenets of international law. Time and time again the veto, which was designed to be used in upholding the Charter, has become the device to negate it; the principal offenders are the United States and Russia and their respective allies. Guterres has this week pushed for major Security Council reform, yet intractable divisions will likely prevent the Secretary-General from getting his way.
Guterres’s period in office has been characterised by his own deep sense of caution. In April 2022, a group of more than 200 former senior UN officials wrote to the Secretary-General, warning him that, unless he did more to achieve a ceasefire and peace negotiations in Ukraine, the organisation risked not just irrelevance but its own future existence. If anything, the situation has now become far worse when taking into account the egregious killing of civilians and use of starvation as a weapon by Israel.
While Guterres has spoken out and UN institutions such as the International Court of Justice have condemned the Israeli occupation, the Secretary-General has been reluctant to call out Joe Biden over the latter’s soft stance on Israel. US-supplied missiles are being dropped on Gaza, and now US-supplied fighter jets are bombing Lebanon. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken struggles to secure a ceasefire, Guterres could enhance his standing by stepping up to lead the discussions.
To add grotesque insult to injury, Israel has also targeted UN humanitarian workers. Some 289 aid workers, including 207 UNRWA team members, and 885 health workers have been killed. Throughout, Biden has had the power to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu but has singularly refused to do so.
The UN General Assembly, effectively a global parliament, can step in when the Security Council is paralysed. By an overwhelming majority, it has just voted to impose sanctions on Israel, and has affirmed the ruling by the International Court of Justice which legally obliges all member states to end complicity over Israel’s illegal military occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Just as the General Assembly did in the case of apartheid South Africa, all member states are now obliged to impose a comprehensive military embargo, among other sanctions.
The wheels are moving, as the Global South increasingly speaks as one. Really, it would not take a huge amount to break this log jam. Keir Starmer, a former international lawyer, is set to fly to New York for the General Assembly this week. The Biden administration knows that a British prime minister who decides to break with the US State Department and signal support for the sanctions vote will leave America more isolated than ever. For now, though, sceptics won’t be holding their breath: the UN’s power has long since been diluted.
Mark Seddon is a former UN correspondent and New York bureau chief for Al-Jazeera English TV. He also worked in the speechwriting unit for the former secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon
MarkSeddon1962
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Subscribe“..the UN’s per has long since been diluted”. Well, I can only hope that you are correct in that, at least. And if you are expecting Starmer’s “former international lawyer” CV to be relevant to the UN’s future, you could be clutching at straws there – its like saying that Reeves’ career at the B of E will be relevant to what she does as chancellor
How the author thinks that Starmer will have any influence on anything that the Israeli government do is utterly beyond me. As for the the idiot Lammy, forget it.
Salonfähigkeit is flourished
The UN’s powerlessness was proved decades ago and that’s a good thing.
Having a forum where sovereign states can talk and try to resolve disputes without war is obviously a good thing. But why anyone persists in thinking its a good idea for the UN to be some sort of international bouncer is one of the great mysteries.
It is only good to talk if all sides are represented equally. This has never been true in the UN. A complete waste of money and I assume it is another drain on the UK’s meagre funds.
“the egregious killing of civilians and use of starvation as a weapon by Israel.”
Both of these are debatable charges, seems strange to assert them both without any evidence. Give me a link to a (decent) article at least.
And talking about UNWRA without mentioning their infiltration by Hamas and how several countries no longer contribute funding isn’t good either.
This is a bad piece
The author works for Al-Jazeera.
so what? One site actually showing the horrific situation in Gaza and the depravity of the Israeli regime
‘This is a bad piece.’
I couldn’t agree more.
That quotation is not merely debatable; it’s downright dishonest. Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to minimise civilian casualties and those who claim otherwise are being wilfully ignorant of the facts. At those times when food has been scarce in Gaza the bulk of supplies have entered via Israel while Hamas hijacked as much as possible for its own terrorists. The UN’s predictions of mass deaths through starvation have never transpired thanks to Israel’s protection of food supplies.
If the UN and its various sub organisations did not behave so contemptibly, maybe it would not be treated with such contempt?
It is not a bad piece but it is a weak piece reflecting the powerlessness of the UN, which has run its course. It has failed, as did the League of Nations, because the West (primarily but not exclusively) has been shredding international law since 1991. The UN should be wound up and replaced with something more realistic with its more grandiose notions left to future generations. If it isn’t, it will inevitably break up into two bodies: UN New York and UN Global South. One way or the other, the latter will force the pace on Israel and probably Ukraine too.
If this is the type of person who works for the UN, then no wonder the UN is irrelevant.
the permanent members of the UN Security Council have shown contempt for the Charter,
As has much of the public. I’m not sure of the point of this story. Maybe there doesn’t have to be one these days.
effectively a global parliament,
And unelected.
So true. Except it is Hezbollah that has proved that the UN is a powerless organization. It has flaunted UNSC resolution 1701, which demanded Hezbollah’s retreat from the border area with Israel and its replacement by the Lebanese army, right under the nose of the UNIFIL forces. This has been going on for 18 years. Then, 11 months ago, Hezbollah has started bombing the North of Israel, unprovoked, turning tens of thousands of Israelis into refugees. Right under the nose of UNIFIL. Still nothing from the UN or Guterres. But now that Israel is finally fighting back, with a precision not seen in any conflict with a terror army ever, the whole UN is clutching its pearls and screaming “war crimes”. Screams of “genocide” are certain to follow.
The hypocrisy stinks to high heaven. But it is worse than that. By expending half its energy – 50% of its decisions and debates – sanctioning Israel, which represents 1/1000 of humanity and 1/10,000 of the Earth’s landmass, for invented crimes, the UN neglects actual genocides, actual famines – in Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea – all places that suffer worse than the Palestinians ever did. This is the real crime.
Flouted not flaunted. Hezbollah does not do ‘Pride’.
Pity.
Thanks. I think I’ll leave the lapsus then.
I can’t really figure out why the UnHerd comments section has such a Zionist bent. I get the Little Englander stuff and even the MAGA stuff too. But why does everyone here go so hard for Israel?
I mean, outside of conservative Christian America and the Jewish communities themselves, literally the whole world is condemning Israel right now.
What exactly do you mean by the whole world? Which countries? Do you mean the general population, the media or the lizard people in government?
Well, just look at the votes in the UN general assembly, for example.
You mean the lizard people.
I’m not so sure. I think that on this one, the power center is actually pushing in the other direction.
Then “the whole world” is an idiot!
That could be, John. It could be. Personally, I have a nuanced opinion on the Israel thing, so I’m open to suggestions on either side. But it still doesn’t explain the bent of this comments section.
It’s kind of normal for the comments section of an article to seem biased in one direction when the article itself is so biased in the opposite direction. People tend to complain and object to obvious misinformation and propaganda.
I take that point. But honestly, this is a long-standing issue around this parts.
I don’t understand your confusion.
Consider the possibility that the consensus in the comment section does not have a ‘Zionist bent’ so much as a moral rightness bent.
Rational people with a modicum of empathy know that the Iranian attack via Hamas on 07 October was a vile, unprovoked slaughter. And the near year long rocket bombardment by Iran’s other imperial puppet, Hezbollah, are unacceptable. So they support Israeli efforts to stop the war Iran started.
What is to figure out? There is a tendency in all nations to view foreign affairs as a cipher for domestic politics. Nowhere more so than in a nation as culturally and linguistically insulated as the United Kingdom
It is equally true of the Keffiyeh wearing home-counties Arts graduate and the tweedy Mail reading philo-Zionist.
None of them are really thinking about the Levant.
Little Englander is used yet again to describe the absolute opposite of its meaning when the term was coined. If you’re going to use an epithet at least use it correctly.
Again I’m always open to being corrected. What does it mean?
It originally meant anti-Imperialist.
It was originally coined to describe those who held the belief that a post imperial Britain was too small and weak to survive on the world stage (similar to the argument put forward by remainers pre and post Brexit and interestingly also misused by them.)
It’s meaning is the total opposite of the much misused xenophobic, racist, hankering after the days of empire epithet.)
It’s not Zionism, it’s just common sense. Israel cannot afford to show weakness against an enemy that is, in many ways, even more genocidal in intent than the Waffen SS. If the country is to survive at all then its enemies must know that every attack will be met with an utterly devastating response.
What do you plan to do with the seven million refugees flooding into Europe in the event they are defeated?
UnHerd readers are not very unherdish. They comment and vote on comments in herds. As can be seen from the thumbs up/down ratio below.
That’s an odd statement. Regarding ratios, what sort of percentages are you thinking of?
Whoever uses “literally” in an argument proves himself a lazy thinker. (“Literally”)
WOEFUL
Without descending into out and out profanity, to vent my anger over this article, I can’t even begin to express how obnoxious I find this article.
Shame on you, Unheard, for allowing this utter, one sided, propaganda bilge to be published on your site.
Could not agree more. An appalling article . Blatantly anti semetic.
The author makes me laugh out loud with his mischaracterizations and falsehoods. It’s just bad propaganda at this point.
“Throughout, Biden has had the power to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu but has singularly refused to do so.”
For me, this is the crux of this article. It explains the delusion of the author and bureaucrats and flunkies such as himself. It shows his ignorance of history, political processes and current alliances. Biden does not have the power to reign in Netanyahu. By what political mechanism can Biden stop Netanyahu from doing anything? And if the U.N. can’t make Israel do or not do anything, how could one country, its strongest ally, make Israel do or not do something? And it’s not that Biden has singularly refused to stop Netanyahu; Biden can’t unilaterally act, he has to work with Congress, and those members of Congress have to answer to their constituents, and the U.S. is about 65-75% pro-Israel.
Joe Biden has put some pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, and could certainly put on a lot more. The president has a lot of power independent of Congress. He should use it.
The U.N. was a useless parasitic organization before these conflicts and they will be long after. Dump the whole project.
I think there’s a certain amount of embroidery in Reeves’ account of her role at the BoE.
Says the terrorist apologist from Al jazeera
“the permanent members of the UN Security Council have shown contempt for the Charter, and have repeatedly undermined and refused to accept the most basic tenets of international law“
This displays a laughable failure to comprehend what international law is, and how it comes into being. It is the set of systems and procedures which are perceived to suit the major powers of the day. How could it be otherwise? Sometimes it will suit their longer-term interests to accept shorter-term restrictions on their ability to act in specific instances, but whenever they perceive their long-term interest to be significantly impaired by what had up till that point been deemed to be ‘international law’, then ‘international law’ will prove to be, as Hobbes, pointed out, “but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all”.
The author thinks Jews should just allow themselves to be murdered. Or he certainly believes it while being paid by a Jew – hating ‘ news’ channel.
It is articles like this that had me cancel my subscription last night (but can comment until my sub runs out).
If UnHerd would balance pieces like this with a counter argument, I’ll renew, but it seems that everything they publish now is poorly written, wildly ill-informed, blatant opinion. Such a shame.
I did the same.
.
Arrivederci, UnHerd!
UnHerd does run some pieces like this, but the balance is tilted toward the right. Seems a shame that so many readers demand complete fealty to their viewpoint or they depart in a huff.
Still, sorry to see you go.
The counter arguments are in the comments which, in this case, as in so many others, make better reading than the article.
Absolutely.
Of course, there is a difference between lies and propaganda on one hand, and well-written contrary opinions on the other. I can read authors such as this in the NYT or Al Jazeera any day of the week. Why do I need Unherd for such a common voice?
Anyone – David Lammy for instance – who thinks the “rules-based international order” is still a thing is an idiot. Anyone who designs their nation’s foreign policy around that premise is a lunatic.
Ridiculous. The UN has always been toothless. What did it do about the Russia’s rape and pillge in Ukraine? What did it do about the incessant Hamas and Hezbollah attacks on Israel? Iraq’s invasion of Iran? And so on ad infinitum.
In all fairness, it did not take Israel to prove that the UN is a feckless, disorganized bunch of kleptocrats whom no one elected and who are never held accountable. The group has done a fine job of discrediting itself without any single nation’s help.
Your author sounds like a schoolboy who still has to learn how international politics work. Having worked for the U.N. and Al-Jazeera this represents an incredible degree of naivety.
Not sure why UnHerd would publish this piece which is clearly and quite violently anti Israel, placed in a wrapping of naive nonsense about the UN. When a permanent member of the Security Council is also an unprovoked aggressor it should be fairly clear that the UN is in no position to do anything about any major conflict. How many General Assembly votes are from countries run by dictators and kleptocrats who posture on the world stage and glibly denounce among others, ourselves? The League of Nations failed. The UN has failed. Its successor – there’s bound to be one – will also fail. Because the big boys are competing with each other and their interests hardly ever coincide.
Not only is the UN powerless, it should remain so.
This is just total garbage – both from the point of view of his hysterical and completely unfounded accusations against Israel, but also his apparently completely naive attitude to international power relations – indeed, any political power.
And to state that “the Global South” is “increasingly united” is utterly laughable, apart from the double standards applied to Israel, which apparently must accept endless terrorist attacks without response. Has Seddon perhaps heard of the South China Sea, the Shia – Sunni confrontation in the Middle East, or the Indian – Pakistani conflict? And many others.
No, the US can indeed ignore an organisation dominated by various dictators and authoritarians, to whom the concept of human rights is used merely as a cynical tool against their adversaries, especially when it largely pays the bills! And, although I deplore the current Russian government, the idea that any ruler of Russia is going to hand over state policy to this hypocritical rabble is also risible.
Framing an article with headlines like “The UN is Losing its Power” works for getting clicks, but the underlying assumptions are silly, to say the least.
The United Nations has been a ceremonial body almost from the beginning. All the way back to 1947 it’s passed hundreds of resolutions trying to settle end the Israel-Palestine conflict – and it’s consistently been spurned by both sides. They sanctioned South Africa in 1964, and the Apartheid regime held on another 30 years. In 1971 they expelled Taiwan for no better reason than that doing so was necessary to lick the boots of the CPC in Beijing – and yet, more than 50 years on, Taiwan is still independent. They looked the other way during the Khmer and Rwandan genocides, made fools of themselves by trying to be neutral during the Falklands War, and made unprincipled exceptions to their own war crimes laws whenever the US wanted to do anything in the Middle East. And now (but really ever since 2014) they are proving themselves impotent once again over Russia.
I’ve got a piece on my own blog attacking right-wingers who insist on seeing the UN as a source of sinister conspiracies when it’s really just a ceremonial body:
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-united-nations-and-the-conspiratorial
But the same arguments work equally well against a center-left idealist who thinks that the UN actually has a spine and is a power for peace and justice in the world – or even that it had a spine as long ago as the 1970s.
Whilst this is undoubtedly a poor hit piece, I am pleased to some degree to see that Unherd is seeking a variety of voices to create a balanced picture. I would just prefer however if they showcased opposing views that weren’t so blatantly motivated by a lack of impartiality
What is fascinating is to ponder is that this essay’s derivative, shallow bigot of a writer was ever close to anyone with power, influence or authority. The answer, in part, as to why the UN is useless certainly explained by the number of people in the UN spouting this sort of offal.
Throughout it’s short history, the UN has always been a powerless organisation. It’s usefulness lies in the fact that opposing sides and factions can talk to each other if they wish. And the USA remains, I think, the main funder.
I think Hezbollah proved the UN was a powerless organisation, or at least didn’t give enough of a damn, when Hezbollah didn’t retreat behind the Litani River (resolution 1701) which was what they promised to do after the 2006 clash with Israel. Israel kept its end of the bargain and withdrew its forces.
Hezbollah didn’t and have been using the ground they were supposed to withdraw from to threaten Israel, and these days of course actually fire rockets from. Hezbollah has been in flagrant breach of a UN resolution for years and years. The UN has done b****r all to enforce it, and now Israel is going to do the heaving lifting for them, and no doubt be widely condemned for breaking eggs to make the necessary omelette. Who knows, the gravy-trainers at the UN might even make a resolution condemning Israeli aggression. Nothing like a bit of virtue-signaling to help the buffet down at the next expensive diplomatic jamboree ‘to address the crisis’.
Adding ‘grotesque insult to injury’? Pot calling the kettle black.
The United Nations has done more to facilitate or ignore global/regional instability than any other entity. It’s LeftWing, anti-colonial orientation from its founding has been dominated by nasty countries (many of them small, unspeakable régimes – e.g. Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s Zimbabwe) with disgusting human rights records.
It’s demise would be a good thing.
The UN was always a rather overrated organisation, but it has now completely outlived it’s usefulness.
“The wheels are moving, as the Global South increasingly speaks as one” – in other words those that have fallen under the influence of nations and groups who hold very different views on democracy (and much else) to the West and are actively working against it and who seem to exert disproportionate power over the UN, and is one manifestation of this.
“In April 2022, a group of more than 200 former senior UN officials wrote to the Secretary-General, warning him that, unless he did more to achieve a ceasefire and peace negotiations in Ukraine, the organisation risked not just irrelevance but its own future existence” I’d be fascinated to hear by what means these former UN sages thought this could be achieved.
Most of this article is utter nonsense, why has Unherd even published it?
By his blatant falsehoods, mischaracterizations, and straight-up lies, this author proves that he is a hate-filled, useless liar.