On the world stage, the promise of the United Nations (UN) – to unite all nations, large and small, strong and weak, in the service of peace and justice – has never stood in more peril.
The devastation of Gaza, the wholesale obliteration of civilian life and infrastructure, and the persistent inaction of the very international institutions designed to prevent such catastrophe have driven not only millions of Palestinians from their homes, but have also dislocated the postwar legal order itself.
Amid a torrent of evidence and eyewitness testimony, as the rubble of bombed hospitals and starved neighbourhoods pile high, the crisis reaches far beyond a humanitarian disaster. It has become the ultimate test for international law and the integrity of global institutions.
For former senior UN human rights chief Craig Mokhiber, who resigned in protest as director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2023, after serving the UN for more than three decades, it is a collapse of the system meant to restrain the powerful and uphold basic decency among nations.
The two faces of the UN
He said of the UN:
What we have seen, not for the first time, but very clearly over the past two years in Palestine, is that it has been wholly incapable of launching an effective response to a genocide.
According to Mokhiber, Gaza has not only become the scene of a genocide, but has revealed the extent to which the rules that were designed to protect populations from such horrors are no longer enforced. States with the most responsibility to uphold these rules are instead complicit in breaking them. He argues that paralysis is not accidental but is exactly how the system is structured.
He explained that:
When you have a permanent member of the Security Council with the veto, the system cannot act. In this case, it is the United States, which not only supports the genocide but is also a co-perpetrator in it, and has been actively participating in it, by providing weapons and intelligence and diplomatic cover and the use of the veto and so on. And that is not a mistake but a failure by design. The five permanent members of the Security Council agreed to the UN Charter on the condition that they be provided, effectively, with an impunity for them and for anyone that they want to grant that impunity to. So, this part of the system has failed by design, but the rest of the system has failed by abdication.
Trapped in stalemate thanks to overreach from nuclear weapon states
The UN now has 193 member states. However, only the five permanent members – known as the P5 countries – have been given veto power to disagree with any decision taken by the member nations of the Security Council. These countries are the UK, the US, France, Russia, and China – the five nuclear weapon states recognised under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Mokhiber claims there is a deep divide within the system. The bloodshed in Gaza has continued month after month, because every attempt at the Security Council to pass binding resolutions for humanitarian access, ceasefire, or accountability has been met with determined obstruction.
Time and again, resolutions calling for cessation of violence, protection of medical facilities, or preservation of critical infrastructure have fallen, not due to lack of votes, but because the United States or other P5 states have exercised their veto.
But, while the Security Council remains trapped in stalemate and top offices are paralysed by fear, he praises the independent Human Rights mechanisms of the UN, saying that parts of the system, such as the UN Special Rapporteurs and humanitarian organisations like UNRWA, have:
behaved perfectly, in a principled way and sometimes heroically throughout the genocide.
This is all while many of their employees have been murdered as they try to bring relief to the besieged. These values Mokhiber insist on are what the organisation was meant to represent.
Lack of courage brings failure to the UN
The dysfunction of the Security Council is worsened, he argues, by a failure of leadership at the highest levels of the UN. These senior political offices which have the authority to speak with moral authority, galvanise member states, and activate alternative mechanisms like the General Assembly, are largely inactive.
According to Mokhiber, this inaction stems from fear or undue influence, particularly from powerful states and wealthy donors – leading them to shy away from their responsibilities.
He said:
The Secretary General and the political offices of the organization have failed, not by design, but by abdication. They have lacked the courage and the principle to defend the norms and standards of the organization because they are either afraid or compromised by countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the European Union, and others… They have failed to act not because they don’t have the power to do more, but because they don’t have the will to do more when the perpetrators or the supporters of the perpetrators are Western powers.
The result, Mokhiber claims, is that international norms themselves are undermined, and made meaningless, by the reluctance to enforce them in the face of Western opposition.
‘Uniting for Peace’: The General Assembly’s forgotten tool
As the Security Council remains locked by vetoes – and therefore by the interests of the powerful – the General Assembly stands as the wider world’s democratic institution.
Mokhiber said that:
The General Assembly since 1950 has been specifically empowered, under the Uniting for Peace resolution (377A(V)), to get around the Security Council veto in matters of peace and security where the council is unable or unwilling to act because of the veto of one of its permanent members. There are some very impressive precedents where Uniting for Peace was used in the General Assembly to take concrete measures, and they have not yet done that. And that is, I think, a real failing.
The first use of the Uniting for Peace resolution was against two NATO members, France and the United Kingdom, during the Suez Crisis in 1956. The resolution was invoked because the Security Council was unable to agree on a way forward due to vetoes by France and the UK. As a result, the first UN peacekeeping force was established, known as the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), and was dispatched to the Sinai.
It successfully secured and supervised the cessation of hostilities. Mokhiber pointed to these dormant powers – which allow the Assembly to recommend emergency action including protection forces, sanctions, and accountability measures – as the best hope left:
So we are trying to put pressure on the General Assembly to do what it can do, based upon the precedence of the 1956 use of Uniting for Peace to establish the UN Emergency Force that was deployed to the Sinai, over the objection of the Israelis, over the objection of the French, over the objections of the British. They were able to do that because the General Assembly acted under the Uniting for Peace resolution to mandate an armed emergency force. They could do the same thing now, and it’s even easier now.
When the General Assembly mandates a force, because it does not have the enforcement power of the Security Council, they need the consent of whoever’s territory they are going to deploy to.
Today, legal arguments are even firmer, because the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has determined that Israel does not hold sovereignty in Gaza or any other part of the occupied territories. It has no right to be there and has no authority or decision-making power over what happens there. That is now clearly established as a matter of international law.
The ICJ has also said that the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination. This means the only consent needed for a General Assembly-mandated protection force, would be the consent of the Palestinians. And for the UN, that means the state of Palestine, the Palestinian representatives. Israel has no right to say yes or no.
Genocide beyond bombs and bullets
Addressing the ongoing genocide in Palestine, which is moving at full speed and, according to Mokhiber, will not be stopped by any ceasefire, means moving beyond simplistic images of conflict. Israel’s strategy, he says, is not confined to military attacks, but extends to the destruction of the civilian infrastructure necessary for life.
Mokhiber explained:
The bombs and bullets are only one of the means that are being used by Israel to perpetrate the genocide. Starvation, denial of food, water and shelter, imposed hunger, imposed disease, the destruction of hospitals, the lack of medical care, all of those things will claim more victims than even the intentional bombing and shooting of Palestinian civilians that’s been going on for the past 20 plus months.
So the only way to stop the genocide is to get a force in there, that is mandated to, firstly, protect civilians from any kind of threats, to secure and support the distribution of humanitarian aid to all parts of the strip, including food and water and medicine and shelter and all of the things that are needed for the survival and recovery of the victims of genocide in Palestine, and thirdly- to preserve the evidence of Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, for accountability, as the General Assembly has said that there must be a process of accountability for Israel’s crimes.
That evidence is being destroyed as we speak – a multinational force could help to protect it. All of these things could be done under the authority of the General Assembly, where we know there is more than two thirds of the member states who are opposing Israel’s actions, and who are supporting Palestinians.
According to Mokhiber, legally and politically, logically and practically, it “absolutely could go ahead”, but the question is, would Israel fire on a UN-mandated international force as it entered Gaza to provide humanitarian relief? Mokhiber does not think so, especially if it were a multinational one which included forces from states that Israel does not want to fire upon.
If one of the P5 countries uses its veto power, and the Security council becomes deadlocked, an emergency special session of the General Assembly can be convened within 24 hours, under the Uniting for Peace resolution. In the case of Palestine, this session, called the 10th Emergency Special Session, focuses on illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
This was first convened in 1997, and has been resumed many times, including during this genocide, to address the ongoing Israeli occupation and its impact on the region. But, according to Mokhiber, the resolutions that were adopted:
did not have the kind of teeth that were needed.
Although temporarily adjourned, any member state can call for it to be reopened, allowing for the Assembly to immediately confront genocide and impunity with more than words.
A blueprint for real action
Mokhiber and others are demanding action that goes beyond the symbolic.
They are calling for a resolution that mandates the use of a protective force with the capacity to provide real protection, deployed at first all over Gaza and then, subsequently, over the West Bank, ideally including occupied Jerusalem. This would be a resolution that strips Israel of its credentials in the UN – as was done with South Africa during apartheid – one that establishes an accountability mechanism, such as an international tribunal, to hold the Israelis and complicit others accountable. It would deal with the “thousands upon thousands of war crimes”.
Sanctions and military embargos are also necessary, as are the reestablishment of the anti-racism and anti-apartheid mechanisms, which existed during South African Apartheid, such as diplomatic isolation, economic sanctions, travel bans, and robust civil society movements, all backed by the legal and moral authority the UN can bring.
Mokhiber said:
In other words, we need real, concrete measures that have the capacity to change the reality on the ground, to change the incentive structure that currently exists, because the number one challenge to human rights and peace and security in the Middle East is Israeli impunity, and the US and the UK and the Germans and some others are thoroughly dedicated to maintaining absolute impunity by the Israeli regime and, under that impunity, as we have seen in recent months, we have witnessed genocide. We have witnessed serial aggression against other countries in the region perpetrated by Israel. We have witnessed a transnational attack in Lebanon using booby traps pagers, we have witnessed summary executions of people across the region perpetrated by Israel. This is what impunity looks like.
‘This is not just the trial of Israel. It is the trial of the entire international legal system’
Plenty of governments and institutions prefer to avoid naming reality at hand. Instead, standard phrases and calls for ‘restraint’ have replaced what international law demands, justice and accountability. Mokhiber suggests there is a lack of political courage, and this can be seen in the statements that are made:
It’s the same talking points over and over again, that have zero impact on the lives and livelihoods of the Palestinian people. ‘Israel, please let in more humanitarian aid. Let’s talk about a two-state solution. Let’s release the hostages’. What they never deal with is the accountability of the perpetrator, which is required under international law. They never deal with the root causes of ethno-nationalism, ethno-supremacy, apartheid, occupation, the denial of the right of Palestinians to return home – none of the actual root causes of what is defined as a conflict. This is oppressor and oppressed, occupier and occupied, genocidaire and genocide.
This is not two sides of a war, which is language that they’re very comfortable using, because then they don’t have to upset the Americans or the Brits or the Germans or the Israel lobby or others, by daring to speak truth to power and saying ‘this is the genocide and it is perpetrator and victim, and our job is to stand with the victim and to make sure that the perpetrator is forced to stop’.
You don’t have to negotiate for your rights with a regime that’s perpetrating apartheid and genocide. Those rights are guaranteed by international law! The job of all of the states and of international institutions is to enforce that law, not to beg for mercy from the perpetrator regime. But they don’t have that. Unfortunately, that’s been the failure of the international system.
Mokhiber continued:
It’s not just Israel that’s on trial, but the entire international system, the idea of international law, international civil rights, all of that is on trial because if Israel can get away with the first livestream genocide in history, and with the defense of most of the West and the inaction of international institutions, that’s the end of that system – and the UN is the centerpiece of that system, and it will not likely survive.
But, instead of standing up to fight back on principle, what it’s doing is bowing down lower and lower to the US, which is using all sorts of tactics, including cutting its funding and so on, to make them feel an existential threat, to increase their fear so that they will soft pedal on Israel. That’s the wrong strategy on the part of the UN. If they don’t stand up, they will be gone in the medium term.
The UK: ‘one of the three most complicit states in the genocide’
Britain is not at the margins of the genocide of the Palestinian people, but at its heart, and we need to do everything within our power to say that this is not in our name that our governments – our criminal governments – are participating in this. We must hold them accountable. But, as Mokhiber explained, companies and the press are also complicit in the genocide, and they must also be investigated and tried if evidence shows they contributed to unfolding war crimes or the obstruction of justice.
He said:
The UK is one of the three most complicit states in the genocide, along with the US and Germany. There’s no question that the UK Government and some UK companies are guilty of the crime of complicity and genocide. Many of them are guilty because of their actions in facilitating it through armaments and other support, and allowing its continuation through diplomatic cover and other such things. UK media like the BBC have disseminated, non-critically, Israeli propaganda for genocide, hiding the stories of the actual genocide, and sometimes crossing the line into incitement of genocide.
Intensification of repression and the meaning of resistance
As mass protests and solidarity campaigns spread across the West, so too does the backlash, with universities, workplaces, and civic spaces becoming sites of intimidation and punishment. Mokhiber sees this escalation as unprecedented, even compared to anti-apartheid campaigns decades ago, when there were arrests and name-calling but nowhere near the level of repression being faced now. But, he says, people are now being targeted, not because they are wrong, but precisely because those in power know they are losing the moral argument.
Mokhiber said:
Western governments have become aligned with the project of repression in Palestine to the extent that they will punish and oppress their own citizens on behalf of one oppressive foreign regime, Israel. If you’re a student who speaks out, if you’re somebody who speaks out in your workplace, if you’re involved in boycotts and divestments, if you’re involved in direct action, you will be criminalized. You may be expelled from school, fired from your job, beaten by police, arrested, deported. That’s what’s different now, and the reason they’re doing that is because they understand that all they have left is fear. They cannot win the legal argument. They cannot win the moral argument. They cannot win the political argument.
All they have is fear and repression. So, they’re betting the entire shop – including their own constitution and laws, protections for their own citizens, and their own budgets – on the idea that they can frighten us enough that we will shut up and allow it to continue. But, so far, it’s not working. Our numbers are growing.
There is now a new ecosystem of political action and information. Digital networks, independent reporting, and direct testimony make concealment far more difficult, and Mokhiber insists that real change has always come from persistent movements, not elite consensus. Shifting the balance of pressure, from the powerful lobbies and donor states back toward the rule of law, requires sustained mass action and global pressure and legal mobilisation, and is now the main hope for halting impunity:
This isn’t 1950 when you had to rely on network television and mainstream newspapers to tell you what was happening. This is the age of independent media, the age of social media, the age of direct content production, where there’s victims and witnesses on the ground, and they’re not getting away with it. But this is their last-ditch effort to silence and punish us. If we give in then we lose, but if we fight back, we will grow and get stronger. The challenge is the challenge of politics, and that’s why the movement has to keep growing, has to keep being visible and strong in demanding justice.
We are heading back to lawlessness thanks to the UN
Mokhiber laid out a stark choice before the international community: either institutions act, or genocide – and the collapse of international legal order – will proceed unhindered, with devastating consequences:
If the system can steel itself and stand up to this situation, and do what needs to be done, which are the specifics we’re calling for, then international law, international institutions could, over time, be victorious in the same way that they were when they organized that way against the apartheid regime in South Africa. That’s scenario number one.
Scenario number two is they continue where they’re going now, allowing for such absolute Israeli impunity. That will be the end of international law and of the international system, including the UN, they will not come back from that.
And why should any member state of the United Nations respect the rule of law, international human rights, the Geneva Conventions, the prohibition of genocide, if the world is now defined as it was before the UN existed, by the use of force alone? That’s going to mean every state will invest all of its resources in becoming as militarily strong as possible. They will understand that it’s ‘might make right’, that you need to have a nuclear weapon, ideally, if you have to compete in this way. And we are back to the law of the jungle.
And unfortunately, the direction we’re heading in now is the latter, and one very significant step to stop that and redirect would be this Uniting for Peace resolution by the General Assembly, with actual teeth, not another tepid statement of principle, but sanctions, embargo protection, force, removal of Israel’s credentials in the UN accountability mechanism, and the General Assembly have the power to do all of that. They only need now to find the will.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.