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Since taking office a year ago, the Trump administration has worked hard to undermine the United Nations, particularly its efforts to protect universal human rights. Currently, US President Donald Trump wants to create a new organization, a Peace Commission, with himself as lifetime chairman. Many countries have been invited, but those who have signed up appear to be rogue groups of leaders and governments with human rights records ranging from questionable to appalling.
The United States played a central role in establishing the United Nations in 1945 to prevent a repeat of the crimes against humanity and genocide committed during World War II. The United States, always wary of being perceived as a threat to its autonomy, has always had a love-hate relationship with the United Nations. But the Trump administration has emphasized hate, ignored love, and denounced what it considers “un-American” and “hostile policies.”
The administration has ignored and defunded dozens of life-saving UN programs. It also withholds many of the assessed contributions that member states are obligated to pay. The regime withdrew from the United Nations World Health Organization, the United Nations Climate Change Agency and international climate agreements, and cut funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which supports and protects women and girls in areas of armed conflict and crisis.
U.S. negotiators are pushing President Trump’s ideological agenda in UN negotiations, demanding that some human rights language be removed from resolutions and statements. U.N. diplomats say the terms targeted include “gender,” “diversity” and “climate” because the Trump administration considers these terms “woke” or politically correct. The administration has had some ideological success in the UN Security Council, thanks to its veto power, but less success in the General Assembly, where the United States is only one of 193 voting states and does not have a veto power.
But it is the Security Council that the administration seems determined to reshape in Trumpian fashion. The Peace Commission’s proposed charter describes it as an “international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore reliable and legitimate governance, and ensure lasting peace in areas affected by or threatened by conflict.”
Although the charter does not mention human rights, it will no doubt be music to the ears of the Russian and Chinese governments, which have long sought to downplay human rights at the United Nations.
Judging by the executive board’s $1 billion in dues, Mr. Trump’s board appears to be a kind of paid global club. With several notorious human rights abusers and leaders involved in war crimes, and few voices speaking out against them, it is unlikely that the organization will prioritize ending suffering, hatred, and bloodshed, as President Trump declared at a launch event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. Those invited by President Trump to participate include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both of whom are the subject of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. President Trump has invited to the council leaders from countries with formidable human rights records, from China and Belarus to Kazakhstan.
The charter makes clear that Trump, as board chairman, has the ultimate authority to “adopt resolutions and other directives” as he deems appropriate.
So far, only Hungary and Bulgaria have agreed to join the European Union. Hungarian far-right populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is a longtime supporter of Trump. French President Emmanuel Macron was among those who declined the offer to join, but Trump responded by threatening to significantly increase tariffs on French wine and champagne.
Trump also proposed giving Canada a permanent seat on the U.S. Security Council. But he withdrew his offer after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos. Carney did not mention President Trump or the United States by name, but he said the United Nations and other multilateral institutions were under threat and harshly criticized the economic repression of small countries by large powers. Mr. Carney called for middle powers to unite and resist big power bullying.
The peace commission was originally intended to oversee the administration of Gaza following more than two years of onslaught and destruction by Israeli forces that has left at least 70,000 Palestinians dead, with the United States weighing in. The Council’s charter does not mention Gaza. But Gaza became the focus of a Davos side event led by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Kushner will be a member of the Gaza Executive Committee, a subsidiary body of the peace committee.
Kushner has laid out a surreal vision of a “new Gaza” with glittering office buildings and pristine beaches packed with tourists. The Gaza Executive Committee does not include any Palestinians, but does include former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff, and senior Turkiye and Qatari officials.
Instead of handing President Trump a $1 billion check, governments should work together to protect the United Nations and other institutions established to protect international human rights and humanitarian law, the global rule of law, and accountability. All available resources should be used to counter America’s unjust actions, including President Trump’s sanctions against ICC judges and prosecutors, the UN Special Rapporteur, and prominent Palestinian human rights organizations. Governments should hold all belligerents accountable for serious international crimes, whether in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar or elsewhere.
Anything less would hand Trump a dangerous victory and allow him and his board to ignore the United Nations and other important international organizations. The United Nations has issues such as the protection of human rights. But the club of rights violators and war crimes suspects is worth strengthening, not replacing.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
