‘Reuniting nations’ – LabourList

President Trump’s recent declaration that he would take over Greenland, by force if necessary, threatening NATO leaders committed to the alliance, and anyone else who dared to disagree, with tariffs, was met with utter dismay by many.

With the immediate disaster averted (for the time being at least), world leaders are now facing the prospect that the rules-based world order we have known for the last 80 years, may be over.

Whether it was this week’s market jitters, or the robust opposition President Trump faced from NATO leaders in Davos that changed his tactics, we need to contemplate what this likely means. In particular, there is a real urgency to consider the future of the United Nations, given the changes to the Board of Peace’s scope, membership and status. This has increasingly deviated from what was permitted by UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 2803 last November.

Unfortunately, the writing has been on the wall, and Western democracies need to take some responsibility for enabling behaviour which undermines the UN and its principles. There has been a collective failure to meaningfully confront not just Trump’s bullying behaviour, but despots masquerading as democratic leaders, those using their power for self-aggrandisement, to control their subjects, and to protect themselves from justice for their abuses. We have failed to use the international law that exists and to apply this equally, a fundamental principle of the UN’s post-war settlement.

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The action (or lack of it) on Palestine is a case in point. Twenty-one months have passed since the horrific Hamas terror attack in Israel on 7th October 2023. 1219 people were killed, including 38 children, and 251 people were taken hostage. The relentless, indiscriminate attacks on Gaza by Israel have killed over 70,000 civilians, including more than 20,000 children. Even the October 2025 ceasefire has failed to prevent at least a further 400 deaths. The arbitrary denial of humanitarian aid; the use of starvation as a weapon of war; the targeting of health care workers and facilities; repeated forced displacements of civilians, and much more are all charges against the Israeli government which Western governments have done little more than public handwringing to hold to account. In December 2024, the UN – through the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) – made clear that Israel must face the consequences of its campaign to undermine the legal framework for the protection of civilians in armed conflicts; but the world and, more importantly, Gazans are still waiting.

At the same time settler expansion into the West Bank, already judged unlawful by the UNSC and the International Court of Justice, continues with impunity; Palestinians are murdered as their homes are destroyed and their land is stolen from them. To add to this, at the beginning of January, Israel announced tenders for a further 3,401 houses in the E1 area of the West Bank. Diplomatic discussions to dissuade Israel from this course were underway but clearly ineffective. The viability of a two-state solution is dwindling before us and what has the international community really done?

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President Trump had already withdrawn from OHCHR and the World Health Organisation but, at the beginning of the year, the list of UN agencies he no longer supports gained the UN Peacebuilding Commission, UNWRA, UN Population Fund (family planning, maternal and child health), and UN Women – bringing the total to 66.  

Then we come to the events of this week where, along with the Greenland threats, President Trump has published his revised plans for the Board of Peace. Far from being an organisation to oversee the ceasefire and reconstruction of Gaza, it has morphed into a larger organisation with one offshoot to fulfil its only legally mandated function. The true Board of Peace – with its logo keeping North America front and centre, forget the rest of the world – is populated with numerous world leaders whose commitments to human rights and peace are questionable to say the least.

The Board of Peace evidently intends on a remit far beyond Gaza, and even its plans for that – as set out by Jared Kushner – clearly align much more with the hopes and dreams of real estate moguls than those whose homeland has been reduced to rubble. The selection criteria is vague, but it couldn’t be clearer that crossing Trump is a guaranteed way to not be invited – just ask the Mexican and South African Presidents, the only G20 leaders not to be invited at all, and Mark Carney of Canada, whose invitation has been withdrawn without explanation.

This new Board of Peace is an assault on the UN and its agencies, setting up a parallel infrastructure, with none of the values and principles that were agreed by the international community when the UN was established after the horrors of the Second World War.  The timing of this announcement after the Greenland debacle raises further questions.

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But let’s remind ourselves of why we should fight for the future of the UN. Since its inauguration in 1945, the United Nations has been at the heart of maintaining the rules-based system for international relations. It definitely isn’t perfect, but the status quo prior to the UN saw the world scarred by two World Wars, as imperialists competed to expand their territories and ‘spheres of influence’.

The UN Charter and 1948’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights were foundational documents underpinning our conceptions of acceptable and unacceptable conduct by states, both in how they treat their own citizens and each other. These values, principles and rights placed an emphasis on dialogue, co-operation, and arbitration rather than the use of force. They make it clear to states that their actions – should they violate international or human rights law – have consequences.

Nevertheless, as previously mentioned, these consequences have been unevenly applied. States in the Global South can rightly complain that their infringements have been far more actively pursued than those of the great powers, and the perceived ability of the five permanent members (P5) of the UN’s Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US – to act with impunity evidently undermines the international system. The veto powers possessed by the P5 are nakedly inequitable and often exercised regularly in a manner which breaches the UN Charter. The lack of serious action to address this has effectively rendered these states unaccountable for any breaches they commit.

In addition to failing to protect Palestinians, the international community – as represented by the UN – has failed to protect Ukrainians, Uyghurs in China, Congolese and Rwandans, civilians in Sudan and South Sudan, and more besides.

For the US, which once considered itself the fiercest defender of human rights and democracy, to be aping Russia and China in its international relations could not be more serious.

As the Prime Minister argued recently, the UN needs reinvigorating for a new age and new challenges. Nevertheless, it must remain underpinned by the shared values on which the post-war organisations dedicated to peace were founded.

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Our ability to trade, our financial markets – indeed, our whole way of life – relies on peace and security. But peace and security are achieved through dialogue, consensus-building, and equal rights for all. We need to collaborate with like-minded nations and build new alliances to create these conditions in a rejuvenated UN.

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