Trump has made the United Nations a dead duck – to the disadvantage of us all
Martin Shipton
The structures set up to maintain world order after World War Two are in existential crisis and in greater danger of collapsing than at any time since they were established. This should worry us all.
Whatever the outcome of the talks taking place between the United States and Iran, who can doubt that the world has become a much more dangerous place because of the criminal actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump?
This is not how things were supposed to be after the second worldwide conflict in less than 30 years came to an end in 1945. It’s why the United Nations was founded.
According to its Charter, the purposes of the UN include reaffirming fundamental human rights; maintaining international peace and security; and promoting the economic and social advancement of all peoples. The UN Charter mandates the UN and its member states to “maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve higher standards of living for their citizens, address economic, social, health, and related problems, and promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
These are noble aims, but it would be foolish to suggest that they correspond in any way to the geopolitical reality of today’s world.
As a charter and constituent treaty, its rules and obligations are meant to be binding on all members. The behaviour of Netanyahu and Trump reinforces the view that the aspiration and the actual situation are poles apart.
Setting up the UN in 1945 wasn’t the first attempt to establish a peaceful world order. The League of Nations was established after World War 1 following an idea put forward by US President Woodrow Wilson. Ironically the US didn’t join due to political opposition in the Senate, constitutional concerns over war powers, and fears of permanent foreign entanglements. The League was unable to combat the rise of aggressive militarism in Germany in the 1930s, but wasn’t formally dissolved until 1946, when its functions were transferred to the newly formed UN.
The UN has had structural problems from the outset, with a system that favours the “big powers” as they were perceived at the end of World War Two. There are five permanent members of the Security Council – Russia, China, the United States, the UK and France – each holding veto powers that can block resolutions. United they may be in theory, but in practice some nations are more equal than others. There are 10 further members of the Security Council drawn from the UN’s entire membership, with each of the non-permanent members serving two-year terms without a veto.
The Security Council’s functions are to identify threats to international peace and determine breaches of peace; to authorise peacekeeping operations and military action; to impose sanctions on states or entities; and to issue binding resolutions that all UN member states must comply with.
Anyone can see that this system isn’t working. That was always true to an extent, but there’s a huge difference between the approach adopted in advance of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the attack on Iran 23 years later.
In 2003 the UN was at the centre of debate over whether an invasion of Iraq would be legal. I remember intricate debates in the UK Parliament and elsewhere about whether an earlier Security Council resolution could be used as a justification for the invasion that President George W Bush, with the assistance of Prime Minister Tony Blair, intended to undertake.
Principled politicians and distinguished lawyers argued strongly that the previous resolution wasn’t sufficient and that an explicit mandate would be required. Had such a course been pursued, any such resolution would have been vetoed, by Russia and China if not by France. In these circumstances, Bush and Blair went ahead with the invasion anyway, despite considerable condemnation. Adam Price, at the time a Plaid Cymru MP, was one of the instigators of an attempt to use centuries-old powers to impeach Blair for war crimes. The bid wasn’t successful, but Blair’s reputation was damaged irretrievably.
In 2026, when Trump was persuaded by Netanyahu to wage war on Iran, the UN was totally disregarded. There were no intricate debates about the legality of the attacks on Iran undertaken by Israel and the US. The US Congress seemed to be absent without leave, while Trump behaved as a dictator without restraint, committing war crimes by bombing civilians with impunity and issuing threats to destroy a civilisation.
Yet the media coverage concentrated on events as they occurred, with analysis of the logistics but very little about the clear illegality that was taking place.
Have we become so inured to Trump’s wild behaviour that we shy away from expressing our outrage?
I discussed these concerns with Mick Antoniw, a former Counsel General who has just retired from the Senedd, where he was the MS for Pontypridd.
He said: “This is a real existential crisis for the UN. Trump and Netanyahu have defied the whole essence of the rule of law and contravened the human rights of civilians. Putin has done the same before them.
“Trump has put the future of NATO in doubt, which will obviously please Putin.
“International bodies which were created to maintain peace after World War Two are in danger of becoming irrelevant, with the UN reduced to being a relief agency. From the outset the problem has been that the implementation of the UN’s aims is based on consent. When you have leaders who don’t abide by civilised norms and are prepared to flagrantly breach them, the system falls apart. This is very worrying.
“We already have a situation where the US and a small number of other countries including China and India do not recognise the International Criminal Court (ICC). People like Trump, Netanyahu and Putin should be left in no doubt that they will be arrested as war criminals if they travel to countries where the ICC is recognised.
“Europe should be standing together to reinforce human rights and social progress. Being outside the EU has made the UK particularly vulnerable, and there is a compelling case for us to move closer to the EU, with a view to rejoining as soon as possible.”
The threats posed to the UK by the likes of Trump and his erstwhile friend Musk, whose social media channel X has become notorious for pumping out far-right and racist propaganda, should be taken far more seriously by the British authorities.
As part of the defence of our democracy, voters in Wales should ensure on May 7 that Reform UK, led by a shameless Trump groupie, comes nowhere near power.
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It was always a dead duck. Firstly because of communist Russia, now because of them and communist China. It even made Saudi Arabia a leader on human/women’s rights. It is a foul organisation that should have been disbanded years ago.
The UN is not a foul organisation. It just needs major major reform. For a start the Security Council needs to be abolished, it’s obsolete and corrupted. The UN’s fundamental aims are what every country should adhere to for the peace and prosperity of all humanity. The organisation needs to be stronger both politically and militarily than any one country.
That is an impossible idea.
What kind of world are you trying to create without some form of international organisation that is trying to get everyone working together. Give up on that and you give up on humanity.
“The organisation needs to be stronger both politically and militarily than any one country.” How will that work? Who is the number one contributor to the UN? Also, the UN does not have, for example, any fighter aircraft to police ‘no-fly zones” – they are contributed/approved under the UN banner by member nations in particular the United States of America.
Then it needs those capabilities you mentioned. It’s not going to happen overnight understandably but it has to happen. That’s not just me saying that, the leaders of many countries are now talking about it too. Without a doubt the world needs a stronger UN otherwise wars like in the Ukraine and Iran will get worse until one day – there will be another world war.
It is silly to think that the United States, the largest contributor to the UN, will also turn over its military to the UN.
In the context of Iran’s ambitions to build 11 atomic weapons the public often asks: “What the world needs to see is diplomacy.” Except Iran wants to keep enriching uranium, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the IRGC) has repeatedly said so. It’s important that the IRGC’s ballistic missiles are curtailed. It is notable that the IRGC lied about their range – the longest range ones now have two stages and can hit targets 3,000 miles away; their goal is clearly to develop and deploy hundreds of ICBM multistage ballistic missiles. This has to be stopped. The IRGC have… Read more »
Yawn Yawn we heard it all before with the Weapons of Mass destruction in Iraq.How about the UN membership show some bottle and demand the demilitarisation of the USA. These trouble Makers have started more wars and destabilised the world more than any other UN Membership since the inception of the UN. The UN is spinless for allowing the continued membership of Israel who’s government have been indited for war crimes against The Palestinian people and now in Lebanon.Of course it would be too much for the UN to proscribe the IDF. With all the aggression coming from the Modern… Read more »
How you can be such a fan of the Iranian regime is beyond me. Have you not read anything about women being murdered because of the clothes they wear, gay people hung from cranes, women hanged for the crime of being raped etc etc?
There are some on the left that fear the loss of Iranian support for eradicating Israel.
I think you may have hit the proverbial on the head. Bizarre.
The UN Charter specifically rejects the use of force and intervention into the internal affairs of sovereign states, except in cases such as self-defence So any argument based purely on regime type or humanitarian intervention does not wash.
No one is defending the Iranian regime, however whenever the USA bypass this charter, it sets a precedent that others, particularly Russia and China, can point to when justifying their own actions.
No one here is defending Iran. However, how the international community deals with the country needs to be lawful. It needs to follow the rules set up by the UN. In the US it’s supposed to get the blessing of Congress. Trump has ignored everyone and is sending a signal to other countries that they can do the same too. It will lead to another world war and carnage unless the UN is made stronger.
… and how do you account for Iran building its primary Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF), which includes capabilities to produce uranium metal, at the Esfahan (Isfahan) Nuclear Technology Center?
Spot on. An Iran with nuclear weapons would be the end of us all.
You also need to consider that during his first term Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal just to spite Obama, and despite Iran being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not. I do no like the Iranian regime, but it’s also worth noting that states typically pursue nuclear capability as a deterrent rather than for actual use. Mutually Assured Destruction means that any nuclear strike would invite devastating retaliation, which is exactly what Trump or Netanyahu would were Iran to actually launch a nuke. This is why such weapons have not been used between nuclear-armed… Read more »
“… but it’s also worth noting that states typically pursue nuclear capability as a deterrent rather than for actual use”; it appears you accept that it is OK for Iran to convert its highly enriched uranium stocks to uranium metal.
I never said that I supported Iran getting nuclear weapons. I don’t want the Iranian regime to have them anymore than I want Putin, or Kim Jong‑un having them either. What I said is that states typically pursue nuclear capability as a deterrent, not because they intend to use it, explaining that logic is not the same as endorsing it.
The UN has become corrupt and pointless. It can only function when the member states have a commitment to peace and the established order. Neither of those things now exist. Its days were numbered when Putin was allowed to annex the Crimea.
The US doesnt even have the stamina to negotiate for more than 21 hours with Iran. Some help needed from the UN there.
NATO is now exposed as a paper tiger and we have to re-inforce our defence to uphold international law in our territorial waters and stop the plundering of our fisheries. We need to put our imperial past behind us and develop our reputation as peacemakers, not warmongerers.
The UK has been undermining the UN for years by acting unilaterally, trying to preserve legacy influence, rather than through the UN.
The international order is fundamentally anarchic, there is no world government and no authority higher than that of a sovereign state. There are international institutions such as the United Nations, European Union and NATO designed to mitigate the anarchic order through diplomacy and cooperation, but ultimately this is dependant on the consent of their members. The UN, established after the Second World War to prevent imperialism and future conflicts, is built on a Charter that upholds the sovereignty of states. The difficulty is that any attempt to reform the system in a way that significantly undermines the interests of major… Read more »