Founded on the ruins of a war-torn world, the United Nations was meant to embody hope: to guarantee peace, uphold international law, and foster cooperation among peoples. In 2024, it is nothing more than a diplomatic corpse. The world is burning, peoples are rising up, children are dying under the bombs, yet the UN remains silent, watching and stalling. Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Congo, Haiti: UN passivity has become systemic. This is no longer about reforming it. It must be buried.
A FOUNDING ILLUSION
The UN was portrayed as a safeguard against barbarism, a legal barrier to war. That promise died at birth. The League of Nations had already failed miserably after the First World War. The UN was simply a recycled diplomatic structure, designed by the victors of 1945 to manage the world according to their interests. It was never neutral. It has always been the diplomatic arm of a global order built on military and financial power.
THE SECURITY COUNCIL: A PERMANENT COUP
Five countries—USA, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom—grant themselves an absolute right of veto. They can block anything, including the denunciation of war crimes. This right makes the Security Council a planetary oligarchy. The rest of the world? Spectators. When Ukraine is invaded, Russia uses its veto. When Gaza is razed, the USA shields Israel. When France exploits Africa, no one intervenes. This is not a council. It is a cartel.
This micro-world government controls everything. A single dissenting voice among the five is enough to block any resolution, no matter how urgent. The USA has cast over forty-five vetoes on resolutions condemning Israeli crimes. Russia does the same to protect its own atrocities in Ukraine. The law is suspended the moment power is questioned. The rest of the world? Silenced.
GAZA: THE FINAL PROOF
Since 2008, over sixty thousand Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Dismembered children, razed hospitals, orchestrated famine. According to UNICEF, more than fifteen thousand children have been killed since October 2023. The WHO speaks of a health system that has been “obliterated.” Even the UN itself, through the ICJ, acknowledged a plausible risk of genocide. And yet?
No sanctions No protection force No binding international investigation Empty statements and a cascade of US vetoes
The ICJ formally recognised a plausible genocide risk in the South Africa v. Israel case, January 2024. And yet nothing. Complicit silence. Permanent obstruction. Political collusion. Gaza has exposed the UN’s true face: an institution that protects the perpetrators, so long as they are the right ones.
SELECTIVE INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE
African leaders end up before the ICC. But Western war criminals? Untouchable. George W. Bush for Iraq. Tony Blair for the illegal bombings. Emmanuel Macron for the crimes committed in the Sahel. Never investigated. Impunity is the rule when the bombs bear a Western label. International law has become a weapon of coercion for the weak, never a standard for the powerful.
BEHIND THE REPORTS, THE POLITICS OF BLACKMAIL
Votes at the General Assembly are bought. Aid is conditional. UN agencies are infiltrated. Their funding is in the hands of the dominant. When UNRWA was accused without evidence by Israel in January 2024, the United States and several European countries immediately suspended their contributions, plunging humanitarian aid into chaos. And when dissenting voices rise—like Francesca Albanese or Richard Falk—they are slandered, marginalised, delegitimised. The UN is not an arbiter of peace. It is a geopolitical lever.
THE UN CANNOT BE REFORMED. IT MUST BE REPLACED
Reforming the UN? An illusion. The powerful block any structural transformation. Abolish the veto? Never. Give real power to the Global South? Unthinkable. The UN is structurally unreformable. Its very existence blocks the emergence of genuinely multilateral, decolonial, grassroots alternatives. Yet some embryonic alternatives already exist: CELAC in Latin America, BRICS+, ALBA, the African Union—each at different stages, attempting to build autonomous diplomacy. The UN cannot be fixed. It must be overthrown.
THE UN IS DEAD. BURY IT BEFORE OTHERS DIE
As long as the UN survives in its current form, it will continue to legitimise the dominant, block justice, and protect the genocidaires. Gaza is the ultimate test. If the UN can do nothing, then what is the point? It is time to declare its official failure and make room for a true international community. One built from the Global South, among peoples, social movements, independent jurisdictions, popular alliances, citizens’ tribunals. A justice with no vetoes, no colonial hierarchy, no double standards. A community built on human dignity—not arms.
As a doctor at Al-Shifa hospital put it: “We don’t need their speeches. We need them to stop the bombs.”
“When the law becomes complicit in crime, resistance becomes duty…”
G.S.
