Feb 9 2026 (IPS) – CIVICUS discusses the genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with Mohammed Nowkhim of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights (ARSPHR), a civil society organisation led by Rohingya people born out of refugee camps in Bangladesh to document atrocities, preserve survivor testimony and advocate for accountability and justice.
Mohammed Nowkhim
On 12 January, the ICJ began hearings in the genocide case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar over the military’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority. The Gambia, representing the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s 57 members, accuses Myanmar of breaching the Genocide Convention. The Gambia’s justice minister presented evidence of mass killings, sexual violence and village destruction during a government crackdown in 2017 that forced over 700,000 Rohingya people to flee to Bangladesh. Rohingya survivors testified in closed sessions. Myanmar denies genocidal intent, characterising its actions as counterterrorism. A final judgment is expected before the end of the year.
What atrocities were committed against Rohingya people and what is being examined in court?
During what were called ‘clearance operations’ in 2017, Myanmar security forces burned entire villages, raped women, killed children and threw them into fires and wells. According to documented reports, over 10,000 people were killed and around 700,000, including me, were forced to flee Myanmar. These were not random acts of violence; they were systematic and targeted attacks aimed at erasing our community.
In 2019, The Gambia, supported by 11 other states, filed a case against Myanmar at the ICJ, accusing it of genocide. Judges are now examining evidence of mass killings, sexual violence, village destruction and forced displacement. They are also reviewing official policies and actions that show intent to destroy Rohingya people as a group, including patterns of violence, coordination by state forces and the systematic denial of basic rights.
This case shows that genocide claims can be examined through law rather than dismissed for political convenience. But for the Rohingya, this is not just a legal process. It represents acknowledgment and a source of hope for present and future generations. After decades of denial and silence, our suffering is being heard at the world’s highest court and recognised in a legal space where truth matters. The hearings can’t erase our wounds, but they can offer some solace and a path towards justice.
Civil society played a key role when states failed to act. Even when the world looked away, organisations continued to document the truth and refused to let these crimes be erased or rewritten. Long before any court agreed to listen, groups including the ARSPHR were collecting survivor testimonies, documenting violations and carefully preserving evidence, knowing it might one day be used in court. Without that work, much of what happened would have been lost and perpetrators couldn’t have been challenged.
In a way, civil society became the memory of the Rohingya people. Today, this evidence forms part of the case before the ICJ.
Why is accountability so difficult?
Politics often protects perpetrators. Those with power choose stability over justice and shield those responsible for crimes. Myanmar’s authorities continue to deny wrongdoing and refuse to cooperate, which delays justice.
International law also has its limits. Justice moves slowly because ICJ rulings do not automatically lead to consequences. International courts can establish the truth, but they can’t force states to act. Enforcement depends on political will, often through the UN Security Council, where countries such as China and Russia can block action, even when crimes are clear and well documented.
What must happen to ensure justice?
There must be real action. Perpetrators must be held accountable, Rohingya citizenship must be restored and discriminatory laws that enabled genocide must be removed. Any return of refugees must be voluntary, safe and dignified. It can’t happen without international monitoring and guarantees of protection. People can’t be sent back to the same conditions that forced them to flee.
Ultimately, justice is not only about the past, but also about ensuring that future generations of Rohingya can live with rights, safety and dignity. This case is only the beginning. What happens after the judgment will decide whether justice is real or only symbolic.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
Prosthetics marketed by I-Walk at an event marking resistance to Myanmar’s military coup of five years ago. The enterprise has a waiting list of over 3,000 people. Credit: Guy Dinmore/IPS
MYANMAR & THAILAND, Feb 4 2026 (IPS) – Five years of conflict since the military seized power have reduced Myanmar to a failed state and taken a huge toll of lives lost and destroyed. But with all sides seeking total victory, there is no end in sight.
Levels of medieval brutality enhanced by modern technology have enabled the military junta, with help from China, to swing the fortunes of war back in its favour, often through air strikes and drone attacks on civilian targets. Torched villages are deserted.
Kyaw Thurein Win, on the anniversary of the military’s February 1, 2021, coup against the elected civilian government, watched his village of Shut Pon burning in the southern region of Tanintharyi – through satellite imagery.
“Today my village is witnessing the cruelty of the military. They set the fires and ordered that they not be stopped. This is beyond inhuman and beyond cruel. Watching this happen from afar is unbearable,” he wrote on Facebook.
While the strength of anti-regime defiance and determination is undeniable among many in Myanmar, there is also a growing realisation – especially among former combatants — that the resistance will not win this war so soon, if at all.
“It is a stalemate. Nobody can win,” said one military defector, saying that cries of total victory by both the regime and the resistance ring hollow.
A young woman who runs a safe house for former child soldiers as young as 13 says she joined the People’s Defence Forces of the resistance that sprang up against military rule in 2021. But she soon came to realise that, for her at least, war was not the answer and started taking in children forced by poverty and displacement to become fighters against the regime.
She rails against the “whatever it takes” mentality and the toll it takes.
“The civilian suffering is ignored or exploited,” she says, attending a coup anniversary event – a mix of politics and culture and foodstalls – organised by anti-regime civilian activists in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. She shares a picture of ‘Commando’ in uniform, armed to the teeth. He was 12 at the time.
Sayarma Suzanna, fundraising for her school in Kayin State, the Dr Thanbyah Christian Institute for displaced and local children, said she and her 97 students spent all of November hiding in the nearby forest because of air strikes.
“You have to understand that when the students don’t listen to you during lessons, it is because of their trauma,” she said, recounting how one student lost seven family members in air strikes on their village.
At a nearby stall, the manager of I-Walk displayed an array of quality prosthetic limbs made by his enterprise as affordable as possible. He has a waiting list of over 3,000 people.
Myanmar is the most landmined country in the world with the highest rate of casualties. It also ranks as the biggest producer of illicit opium and a major source of synthetic drugs. Networks of online scam centres run by criminal gangs and militia groups close to the regime have trafficked tens of thousands of people from multiple countries, scamming billions of dollars.
The UN says 5.2 million people have been displaced by conflict inside the country and across borders. Cuts by rich countries to aid budgets have had a crippling impact. Some clinics are reduced to dispensing just paracetamol.
This year’s coup anniversary coincided with the conclusion of parliamentary and regional elections tightly orchestrated by the regime over the scattered and sometimes totally isolated areas of territory it controls, which include all major cities.
The three-phase polls – endorsed by China and Russia but slammed by the UN and most democracies except notably the US – excluded the National League for Democracy, which won landslide election victories in 2015 and 2020.
NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been held in prison since the coup. There is speculation that Senior General Min Aung Hlaing might move her to better conditions of house arrest after the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party, led by former senior officers, forms a nominally civilian government in April.
The USDP is cruising towards its managed landslide victory, according to almost complete results released last week.
The UN said it had reliable reports of at least 170 civilians killed in regime attacks during the month-long election period. Other estimates put the figure considerably higher.
One airstrike in Kachin State in northern Myanmar reportedly killed 50 civilians on January 22. Long-running attempts by the Kachin Independence Army and resistance forces to capture the nearby and heavily defended Bhamo town from the military have been costly. Some analysts ask, for what gain?’
Kachin State’s second biggest town is strategically located on a trade route to China but most of its 55,000 or so inhabitants have long since fled. The military would surely respond with heavy air strikes to any occupation by the resistance.
Data gathered by ACLED, a nonprofit organisation that analyses data on political violence, indicates over 90,000 total conflict-related deaths since the coup. The military, reliant on forced conscription, has borne the brunt of casualties, but civilian deaths are estimated at over 16,000.
“The military has carried out air strikes, indiscriminately or deliberately attacking civilians in their homes, hospitals, and schools,” said Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, adding that there is evidence that civilians have endured atrocities amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes since the military takeover.
The IIMM is also investigating a growing number of allegations of atrocities committed by opposition armed groups, over which the parallel National Unity Government set up by lawmakers ousted in the coup has little or no control.
Former combatants say rogue People’s Defence Forces are also extorting money from local populations and holding people to ransom.
“Myanmar remains mired in an existential crisis – measured both in human security and the state’s shrinking sovereignty as rival centres of power harden on the ground,” the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, a think-tank, stated in its recent annual review.
“The regime is meanwhile trying to break the current stalemate by accelerating counter-offensives on three fronts: military, diplomatic and political,” it said. The military-staged elections of 2010 led to a process of political and economic reforms but this time the regime intended to impose its own terms, the think tank said.
It warned of the risk that ethnic armed groups controlling swathes of border territories with Bangladesh, India, China and Thailand would end up – not for the first time – negotiating bilateral ceasefires and “rent sharing arrangements” with the regime. These would “consolidate the power of armed elites and reinforce central control rather than advance democracy, human rights or the rule of law.”
On Sunday, a panel discussion featuring anti-regime politicians and activists hosted by Chiang Mai University reinforced the sense of an opposition fragmented along ethnic and geographical lines, even if speakers upheld the principles behind their shared goal of a democratic federal union.
There was the customary rhetoric of “taking down this junta” and “whatever it takes”, but barely a mention of the National Unity Government that is struggling to knit together these diverse forces under the umbrella of a “Federal Supreme Council”.
On the panel, Debbie Stothard, a Malaysian democracy and women’s rights activist long involved with Myanmar, said the resistance needed two more years for victory, as the generals had “bought” one more year with their sham elections.
“Hang in there. We have to keep on going for at least two more years,” she said.
But in the big cities where the regime is starting to try and foster a sense of normality against a dire economic backdrop, the mood on the street appears more of resignation than defiance.
“When we started protesting against the regime in the streets in 2021, I told my husband we would defeat the military in three months,” an elderly Chin activist told IPS in Yangon, the former capital. “He replied it would take five years. Now I am afraid it will take another five years,” she said.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres (seated at right) speaks to reporters at a press conference at UN Headquarters, in New York. UN Photo/Mark Garten
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2026 (IPS) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was dead on target when he told the Security Council last week that the rule of law worldwide is being replaced by the law of the jungle.
“We see flagrant violations of international law and brazen disregard for the UN Charter. From Gaza to Ukraine, and around the world, the rule of law is being treated as an à la carte menu,” he pointed out, as mass killings continue.
“The New York Times on January 28 quoted a recent study pointing out the four-year war between Russia and Ukraine has resulted in over “two million killed, wounded or missing”. The study published last week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington says nearly 1.2 million Russian troops and close to 600,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed, wounded or are missing.
In the war in Gaza, over 70,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including women and children, have been killed since October 7, 2023, with figures reaching over 73,600 by early January 2026, according to various reports from the Gaza Health Ministry and human rights organizations.
These killings have also triggered charges of war crimes, genocide and violations of the UN charter, as in the US invasion of Venezuela and the takeover threats against Greenland.
Guterres said in an era crowded with initiatives, the Security Council stands alone in its Charter-mandated authority to act on behalf of all 193 Member States on questions of peace and security. The Security Council alone adopts decisions binding on all.
No other body or ad hoc coalition can legally require all Member States to comply with decisions on peace and security. Only the Security Council can authorize the use of force under international law, as set out in the Charter. Its responsibility is singular. Its obligation is universal, declared Guterres.
Dr Ramzy Baroud, Editor of Palestine Chronicle and former Managing Editor of the London-based Middle East Eye, told IPS the statement by the Secretary-General is long overdue.
Too often, he said, UN officials resort to cautious, euphemistic language when describing egregious violations of international law—especially when those responsible are UN Security Council veto holders, states that have ostensibly sworn to uphold the UN Charter and the core mission of the international system.
Unfortunately, the UN itself has become a reflection of a rapidly shifting world order—one in which those with overwhelming military power sit at the top of the hierarchy, abusing their dominance while steadily hollowing out the very institutions meant to restrain them, he pointed out.
“We must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that this crisis did not begin with the increasingly authoritarian misuse of law by the Trump administration, nor is it limited to Israel’s absolute disregard for the international community during its two-year-long genocide in Gaza.”
The problem is structural. It is rooted in the way Western powers have long identified—and exploited—loopholes within the international legal system, selectively weaponizing international law to discipline adversaries while shielding allies and advancing their own strategic agendas, he declared.
Responding to a question at the annual press briefing on January 29, Guterres told reporters it is obvious that members of the Security Council are themselves violators of international law –and it doesn’t make life easy for the UN in its efforts.
Unfortunately, he said, there is one thing that we miss. “It’s leverage. It’s the power that others eventually have, to force countries and to force leaders to abide by international law. But not having the power, we have the determination, and we’ll do everything possible with our persuasion, with our good offices, and building alliances to try to create conditions for some of these horrible tragedies we are witnessing. And from Ukraine to Sudan, not to mention what has happened in Gaza, we will be doing everything we can for these tragedies to stop”.
Dr Jim Jennings, President of Conscience International, told IPS the global humanitarian situation described by the Secretary-General is grim but very real. The climate crisis, natural disasters, numerous ongoing and expanding conflicts, and the impact of new technologies, all add to today’s global economic instability and affect every person on earth.
While President Trump continues bombing countries and strutting the world stage with his adolescent dream of US territorial expansion, a major readjustment of the global power balance among China, the US, Europe, and the BRICS nations is underway, he noted.
Stripping life-giving aid away from the poorest countries on earth to benefit those already rich, as his policies guarantee, is a recipe for even more global suffering and violence.
“Clearly one of the most blatant and harmful reasons for the present disastrous situation worldwide is the reduction of funding for UN agencies by the United States, which has traditionally paid a high percentage of their costs”.
With the further curtailment of The Department of State-USAID’s enormous support for people in critical need in almost every country in the world, the Trump administration’s one-two punch has already threatened to make a challenging set of problems unmanageable.
What is to be done? People and governments everywhere must stand up, speak out, and act against the colossal forces now arrayed against some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. How to do that has never been easy, Dr Jennings argued.
Put in the simplest terms, Secretary-General Guterres was merely pointing out the glaring fact of the true global situation and appealing for the critical need UN agencies have for support if their mission is not to fail. The answer is straightforward— more private funding.
Why not raise the level of our individual, corporate, and foundation donations to the UN Agencies and other aid organizations while continuing to advocate for responsible government backing for the irreplaceable United Nations agencies? he asked.
Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the UN Treaty Section, told IPS international relations, for a very long time, were dependent on the whims of powerful states and empires. Might was right and disputes were settled by using force. Land inhabited for centuries was annexed to empires and native populations were dispossessed or even exterminated.
From such fractured beginnings, an orderly world governed by agreed rules began to emerge gradually, although most of the rules were established by the powerful.
Thousands of treaties were concluded, customary rules were respected and a rudimentary judicial structure began to be established. The world rejoiced in the establishment of the United Nations.
Though lacking in proper enforcement mechanisms and largely dependent on voluntary mutually beneficial compliance, a rule based international order was beginning to emerge.
“Many, including the present writer, wrote enthusiastically about the consolidation of a rules-based international order. The violence that was commonplace in international dispute resolution prior to the Second World War appeared to be limited to distant parts of the world.”
But like a cozy dream being shattered in mid-sleep, he said, the USA has rudely disrupted the illusion of a new international rules-based world order of which it was once a champion. The trade rules, so painfully developed, have been ditched. Mutual deal making has resurfaced, he said.
“Now it would seem that the powerful would determine the rules, based on self-interest. Rules relating to sovereignty, territorial integrity and rights of people would now seem to depend on the whims of the powerful. The weak will draw their own conclusions. Acquire counterattack capabilities that would make an aggressor think twice”.
“Unless the medium powers and powerless band together and resolve to maintain the international rule of law, we may be entering an era of extreme uncertainty in international relations”, declared Dr Kohona, a former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN and Ambassador to China.
Dr Baroud also pointed out that the 2003 US-British invasion of Iraq stands as a textbook example, but the same pattern has repeated itself in Libya, Syria, and across large parts of the Middle East and beyond. In each case, international law was either manipulated, ignored, or retroactively justified to accommodate power rather than principle.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, and the ongoing atrocities in Sudan and elsewhere are not aberrations. They represent the culmination of decades of legal erosion, selective enforcement, and the systematic degradation of the international legal order.
While I agree—and even sympathize—with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in which he expressed criticism of the new power dynamics that have rendered the international political system increasingly defunct, one cannot help but ask why neither he nor other Western leaders are willing to confront their own governments’ historical role in creating this reality.
Without such reckoning, calls to defend international law risk sounding less like principled commitments and more like selective outrage in a system long stripped of credibility.
European powers that are critical of Trump have not raised their voice with the same intensity and vigor against Netanyahu for doing a lot worse than anything that Trump has done or threatened to do.
This also begets the same question about the latest comments by the UN Secretary-General. He should offer more specifics than generalized decrying the collapse of international morality.
“Moreover, we expect a roadmap that will guide us in the process of re-establishing some kind of a sane global system in the face of the growing authoritarianism, dictatorship, and criminality all around”, declared Dr Baroud.
Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” built around heads of state, including Russia, is structurally ill-suited to end the Israel–Hamas war and to govern postwar Gaza in any sustainable way.
NEW YORK, Jan 26 2026 (IPS) – At a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Trump unveiled his newly formed Board of Peace to end the Israel-Hamas war. During a press conference in the White House, he explained that he created the board because “The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them. I never even thought to go to them.”
He claimed that the Board of Peace will be dealing with ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. He invited many heads of state to join the Board and threatened to impose heavy tariffs on the countries of those who refused. Paradoxically, he also invited Russian President Putin to join the pack.
Even a cursory review of the Board’s structure—its executive make-up, role, and responsibilities—makes it glaringly clear that he placed himself at the forefront of everything, from operations to ultimate decision-making. He basically codified US dominance, as long as he ran it.
He granted himself the authority to veto any decision he did not like, to invite or remove any board member, to approve the agenda, to designate his successor, and even dissolve the board entirely. Furthermore, he reserved a central role for himself even after leaving the presidency.
Shortcomings of the Board and its Structure
In more than one way, the creation of this board dissolves the American-built post-war international system and builds a new one with himself at the center. And while Trump is striving to consolidate authoritarian power domestically, he now wants to project himself on the international stage as if he were an Emperor, presiding over a board composed largely of heads of state. Although board members can have their say, they are nevertheless structurally subordinated to him.
No Seat for the Primary Stakeholders
The Board of Peace and the parallel Gaza Executive Board are designed to sit above a technocratic Palestinian committee, with no Palestinian political representative given a seat at the top table, despite their being primary stakeholders. Hamas is required to disarm, without specifying how, and to withdraw from administrative governance.
The Palestinian Authority is relegated to an “apolitical” managerial role, which in effect reproduces the long-standing problem of trying to impose solutions over Palestinians instead of negotiating with them. This has repeatedly undermined past peace frameworks and offers no pathway towards sustainable regional or world peace.
Conflict of Interests
The board is chaired by Trump himself, with membership effectively bought via a $1 billion “permanent seat” fee, creating apparent conflicts between profit, prestige, and peacemaking. Russia, Israel, Gulf monarchies, and others who have direct stakes in arms sales, regional influence, and energy routes, are not neutral guarantors but interested parties likely to instrumentalize Gaza for their own strategic agendas.
Colonial-Style Trusteeship
The architecture explicitly envisions international figures and heads of state supervising Gaza’s reconstruction, security, and governance, effectively turning Gaza into a protectorate administered by external powers.
Human rights advocates and regional observers are already criticizing this as a colonial-style trusteeship that denies genuine sovereignty, which is already generating local resistance, delegitimizing the arrangement, and providing ideological fuel for militant spoilers.
Israeli and Regional Objections
Israel’s leadership has publicly objected to the composition and design of the Gaza bodies. It is enraged over the role of Turkey and Qatar, forcing Netanyahu to distance himself from aspects of the plan even while joining the board under pressure from Trump.
Nevertheless, the Israeli government views key members of the Board and mechanisms as hostile or at odds with its security principles. Israel will either hinder implementation or hollow it out in practice, turning the board into an arena for intra-allied conflict rather than conflict resolution.
Great Power Rivalry Inside the Board
Ironically, the board anticipates concurrent participation by rivals such as Russia, the EU, and US-aligned states, while at the same time, Moscow is resisting US-backed peace terms in Ukraine and leveraging Middle East crises to weaken Western influence. This arrangement invites the board to become another theater of great power competition, where Russia, Hungary, Belarus, and others can obstruct or dilute measures that do not serve their broader geopolitical interests.
This is not to speak, of course, about the widespread concerns and suspicions among European leaders about Putin’s adversarial relations at the table, which is a recipe for discord and prevents concrete action.
Unclear Legal Basis
Another big hole in Trump’s Board is its framing as an alternative to, and possible replacement for, the United Nations, without any legal foundation, universal membership, or binding authority under international law.
A self-selected club by Trump of mostly invited heads of state, tied to a particular US administration and anchored in significant financial contributions, lacks the procedural legitimacy to impose security arrangements, adjudicate disputes, or credibly guarantee Palestinian rights over the long term, to which Trump pays no heed at all.
Overambitious, Under-Specified Mandate
The board’s responsibilities have already expanded from supervising a Gaza ceasefire to a broad charter “promoting stability” and “resolving global conflict,” which is ostentatious and will never come to fruition, while indicating mission creep before it even begins.
Such a variable mandate, with multiple overlapping structures (Board of Peace, Gaza Executive Board, Founding Executive Board), is almost guaranteed to generate bureaucratic turf wars, paralysis, and incoherence—particularly once crises beyond Gaza compete for attention and resources.
To be sure, this is just another of Trump’s stunts, always pretending that he is the only one who can come up with out-of-the-box ideas. Like many of his initiatives, this so-called Board of Peace one falls into the same category—transactional and reversible.
It is a grandiose idea that cannot be sustained structurally, has no enforcement capability, and relies on a contradictory algorithm to allow it to fulfill its mission, which, in any case, remains open-ended and unrealistic.
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2026 (IPS) – Judging by the mixed signals coming out of the White House, is the Board of Peace, a creation of President Donald Trump, eventually aimed at replacing the UN Security Council or the United Nations itself?
At a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland last week, Trump formally ratified the Charter of the Board — establishing it as “an official international organization”.
Trump, who will be serving as the Board’s Chairman, was joined by Founding Members* “representing countries around the world who have committed to building a secure and prosperous future for Gaza that delivers lasting peace, stability, and opportunity for its people.”
Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction.org, told IPS President Trump’s “Board of Peace” is being designed as a kind of global alliance akin to the “coalition of the willing” that fraudulently tried to give legitimacy to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Trump, he said, is recruiting submissive governments to fall in line with his leadership for pushing the planet ever more in the direction of war for domination and plunder.
The price that members of the Orwellian-named “Board of Peace” will pay is much more than the sought amount upwards of $1 billion each. In a global gangster mode, Trump is making plans and putting up structures on imperial whim, he pointed out.
“At the same time, the methods to his madness are transparent as he seeks to create new mechanisms for U.S. domination of as much of the world as possible”.
Trump continues to push the boundaries of doublespeak that cloaks U.S. agendas for gaining economic and military leverage over other countries. The gist of the message on behalf of Uncle Sam is: “no more Mr. Nice Guy.”
Whereas Trump’s predecessors in the White House have often relied on mere doubletalk and lofty rhetoric to obscure their actual priorities and agendas, Trump has dispensed with euphemisms enough to make crystal clear that he believes the U.S. government is the light of the world that all others should fall in line behind, said Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”
Asked about the Board of Peace, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters last week: “Let’s be clear. We are committed to doing whatever we can to ensure the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 2803, which as you will recall, welcomed the creation of the Board of Peace for Gaza”.
And as you know, he said, part of that resolution and the plan put forward by President Trump talked about the UN leading on humanitarian aid delivery.
“I think we have delivered a massive amount of humanitarian aid in Gaza, as much as we’ve been able to allow. And we’ve talked about the restrictions, but you know how much more we’ve been able to do since the ceasefire. As part of that, we’ve worked very well with the US authorities, and we will continue to do so.”
The UN, Dujarric reaffirmed, remains the only international organization with universal membership. “We’ve obviously saw the announcements made in Davos. The Secretary-General’s work continues with determination to implement the mandates given to us, all underpinned by international law, by the charter of the UN. I mean, our work continues.”
Asked about the similarities between the UN logo and the logo of the Board of Peace, he said he saw no copyright or trademark infringements.
In a statement released last week, Louis Charbonneau, UN Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the United States played a leading role in establishing the UN. Now, US President Donald Trump is undermining and defunding large parts of it.
For the past year, he said, the US government has taken a sledgehammer to UN programs and agencies because the Trump administration believes the institution is “anti-American” and has a “hostile agenda.”
In UN negotiations, US officials have tried to purge words like “gender,” “climate,” and “diversity” from resolutions and statements. Diplomats have described to Human Rights Watch how US officials aggressively oppose human rights language they see as “woke” or politically correct, he said.
In an apparent attempt to sideline the UN Security Council, Trump has proposed a so-called Board of Peace that he personally would preside over. Trump has reportedly offered seats on his board to leaders of abusive governments, including Belarus, China, Hungary, Israel, Russia, and Vietnam, Charbonneau pointed out.
Originally the Board of Peace was meant to oversee the administration of Gaza following over two years of onslaught and destruction by Israeli forces, with which the United States was complicit. But the board’s charter doesn’t even mention Gaza, suggesting that Trump’s ambitions for this body have expanded enormously since first conceived.
The board’s proposed charter doesn’t mention human rights. And it makes clear that Trump, as board chairman, would have supreme authority “to adopt resolutions or other directives” as he sees fit.
A seat on the Board of Peace doesn’t come cheap: there’s a US$1 billion membership fee. Some, like French President Emmanuel Macron, already turned down an offer to join. Trump responded with a threat to significantly increase tariffs on French wine and champagne.
“The UN system has its problems, but it’s better than a global Politburo. Rather than paying billions to join Trump’s board, governments should focus on strengthening the UN’s ability to uphold human rights,” he declared.
Elaborating further, Solomon said the entire “Board of Peace” project is a dangerous farce that seeks to reconstitute a unipolar world that has already largely fallen apart during this century in economic terms.
The criminality of Trump’s approach, supported by the Republican majority in Congress, is backed up by the nation’s military might. More than ever, U.S. foreign policy has very little to offer the world other than gangsterism, extortion and blackmail – along with threats of massive violence that sometimes turn into military attacks that shred all semblance of international law.
Every U.S. president in this century, as before, has disregarded actual international law and substituted the preferences of its military-industrial complex for foreign policy. Trump has taken that policy to an unabashed extreme, shamelessly adhering to George Orwell’s dystopian credo of “War Is Peace” while pushing to wreck what’s left of a constructive international order.
Incidentally, when Indonesia’s mercurial leader Sukarno decided to quit the UN and form the Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) as an alternative, it did not last very long, as Sukarno’s successor, Suharto “resumed” Indonesia’s participation in the UN.
No lasting harm was done to the UN. And all was forgotten and forgiven.
In a further clarification, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters the Board of Peace has been authorized by the Security Council for its work on Gaza – strictly for that. “
“We’re not talking about the wider operations or any of the aspects that have been in the media for the last several days. What we’re talking about is the work on Gaza”.
“As you know, we have welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza and measures to support it, including the Board of Peace, and we’ll continue to work with all parties on the ground to make sure that the ceasefire is upheld. That is about Gaza.”
The larger aspects, he said, are things for anyone wanting to participate in this grouping to consider. Obviously, the UN has its own Charter, its own rules, and you can do your own compare and contrast between the respective organizations.
“As you’re well aware, he pointed out, the UN has coexisted alongside any number of organizations. There are regional organizations, subregional organizations, various defence alliances around the world. Some of them, we have relationship agreements with. Some of them, we don’t.
“We would have to see in terms of details what the Board of Peace becomes as it actually is established to know what sort of relationship we would have with it,” declared Haq.
The participants* at the signing event in Geneva last week included:
• Isa bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, minister of the prime minister’s court, Bahrain • Nasser Bourita, minister of foreign affairs, Morocco • Javier Milei, president, Argentina • Nikol Pashinyan, prime minister, Armenia • Ilham Aliyev, President, Azerbaijan • Rosen Zhelyazkov, prime minister, Bulgaria • Viktor Orban, prime minister, Hungary • Prabowo Subianto, president, Indonesia • Ayman Al Safadi, minister of foreign affairs, Jordan • Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, president, Kazakhstan • Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, president, Kosovo • Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, prime minister, Pakistan • Santiago Peña, president, Paraguay • Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, president, Qatar • Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, minister of foreign affairs, Saudi Arabia • Hakan Fidan, minister of foreign affairs, Turkey • Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, special envoy to the U.S. for the UAE • Shavkat Mirziyoyev, president, Uzbekistan • Gombojavyn Zandanshatar, prime minister, Mongolia
A long list of countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy and other European nations, were absent from the signing, and some have specifically rejected the invitation.
Collecting water in Ethiopia. A new report, ‘Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post Crisis Era’ warns that many of the earth’s water resources have been pushed to a point of permanent failure. Credit: EU/ECHO/Anouk Delafortrie/IPS
UNITED NATIONS & SRINAGAR, India, Jan 20 2026 (IPS) – The world has entered what United Nations researchers now describe as an era of Global Water Bankruptcy, a condition where humanity has irreversibly overspent the planet’s water resources, leaving ecosystems, economies, and communities unable to recover to previous levels.
The new report, released by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, titled Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era. The report argues that decades of overextraction, pollution, land degradation, and climate stress have pushed large parts of the global water system into a permanent state of failure.
“The world has entered the era of Global Water Bankruptcy,” the report reads, adding that “in many regions, human water systems are already in a post-crisis state of failure.”
According to the report, the language of “water crisis” is no longer sufficient to explain what is happening. A crisis implies a shock followed by recovery. Water bankruptcy, by contrast, describes a condition where recovery is no longer realistically possible because natural water capital has been permanently damaged.
In an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service, former Deputy Head of Iran’s Department of EnvironmentProf. Kaveh Madani, who currently is the Director at United Nations University, Institute for Water, Environment and Health, said that declaring that the planet has entered the era of water bankruptcy must not be interpreted as universal water bankruptcy, as not all basins, aquifers, and systems are water bankrupt.
Prof. Kaveh Madani, Director at the United Nations University, Institute for Water, Environment and Health, addresses the UN midday press briefing. Credit: IPS
“But we now have enough critical basins and aquifers in chronic decline and showing clear signs of irreversibility that the global risk landscape is already being reshaped. Scientifically, we know recovery is no longer realistic in many systems when we see persistent overshoot (using more than renewable supply) combined with clear markers of irreversibility—for example aquifer compaction and land subsidence that permanently reduce storage, wetland and lake loss, salinization and pollution that shrink usable water, and glacier retreat that removes a long-term seasonal buffer. When these signals persist over time, the old “bounce back” assumption stops being credible,” Madani said.
“Over decades, societies have withdrawn more water than climate and hydrology can reliably provide, drawing down not only the annual income of renewable flows but also the savings stored in aquifers, glaciers, soils, wetlands, and river ecosystems,” the report says.
The scale of the problem, as per the report, is global. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s population now lives in countries classified as water insecure or critically water insecure.
Madani said, adding that water bankruptcy is best assessed basin by basin and aquifer by aquifer, not by country.
“Please note that, based on the water security definition used by the UN system, water insecurity and water bankruptcy are not equivalent. Water bankruptcy can drive water insecurity, but water insecurity can also stem from limited financial and institutional capacity to build and operate infrastructure for safe water supply and sanitation, even where physical water is available,” he explained.
Madani added that the regions most consistently closest to irreversible decline cluster in the Middle East and North Africa, Central and South Asia, parts of northern China, the Mediterranean and southern Europe, the southwestern United States and northern Mexico (including the Colorado River system), parts of southern Africa, and parts of Australia.
The Aral Sea, which lies between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, shows dramatic water loss between 1989 and 2025. Credit: UNU-INWEH
Surface Water Systems Are Shrinking Rapidly
The report shows how more than half of the world’s large lakes have lost water since the early 1990s, affecting nearly one quarter of the global population that depends directly on them. Many major rivers now fail to reach the sea for parts of the year or fall below environmental flow needs.
Massive losses have occurred in wetlands, which serve as natural buffers against floods and droughts. Over the past five decades, the report claims that the world has lost roughly 410 million hectares of natural wetlands, almost the size of the European Union. The economic value of lost ecosystem services from these wetlands exceeds 5.1 trillion US dollars.
Groundwater depletion is one of the clearest signs of water bankruptcy. Groundwater, says the report, now supplies about 50 percent of global domestic water use and over 40 percent of irrigation water. Yet around 70 percent of the world’s major aquifers show long-term declining trends.
“Excessive groundwater extraction has already contributed to significant land subsidence over more than 6 million square kilometers,” the report says, warning that in some locations land is sinking by up to 25 centimeters per year, permanently reducing storage capacity and increasing flood risk.
In coastal areas, overpumping has allowed seawater to intrude into aquifers, rendering groundwater unusable for generations. In inland agricultural regions, falling water tables have triggered sinkholes, soil collapse, and the loss of fertile land.
These satellite images show a dramatic impact of the Aru glacier collapses in western Tibet. First image was taken in 2017 and the second in 2025. Credit: UNU-INWEH
The cryosphere, glaciers and snowpacks that act as natural water storage systems are also being rapidly liquidated. The world has already lost more than 30 percent of its glacier mass since 1970. Several low- and mid-latitude mountain ranges could lose functional glaciers within decades.
“The liquidation of this frozen savings account interacts with groundwater depletion and surface water over-allocation to lock many basins into a permanent worsening water deficit state,” says the report.
This loss, as per the report, threatens the long-term water security of hundreds of millions of people who depend on glacier- and snowmelt-fed rivers for drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower, particularly in Asia and the Andes.
Madani said the biggest failure was treating groundwater as an unlimited safety net instead of a strategic reserve.
He says that when surface water tightened, many systems defaulted to “drill deeper” without enforceable caps.
“Authorities often recognize the consequences when it is already late, and meaningful action then faces major political barriers. For example, reducing groundwater use in farming can trigger unemployment, food insecurity, and even instability unless farmers are supported through short-term compensation and a longer-term transition to alternative livelihoods,” he added.
According to Madani, that kind of transition cannot be implemented overnight.
“So, business as usual continues. The result is predictable: groundwater gets “liquidated” to postpone hard choices, and by the time the damage is obvious, recovery is no longer realistic,” he told IPS news.
Agriculture Lies at the Heart of the Crisis
According to the report, farming accounts for approximately 70 percent of global freshwater withdrawals. About 3 billion people and more than half of the world’s food production are located in regions where total water storage is already declining or unstable.
The report states that more than 170 million hectares of irrigated cropland are under high or very high water stress. Land and soil degradation are making matters worse by reducing the ability of soils to retain moisture. The degradation of more than half of the global agricultural land is now moderate or severe.
Drought, once considered a natural hazard, is increasingly driven by human activity. Overallocation, groundwater depletion, deforestation, land degradation, and climate change have turned drought into a chronic condition in many regions.
“Drought-related damages, intensified by land degradation, groundwater depletion and climate change rather than rainfall deficits alone, already amount to about 307 billion US dollars per year worldwide,” the report states.
Water quality degradation further shrinks the usable resource base. Pollution from untreated wastewater, agricultural runoff, industrial effluents, and salinization means that even where water volumes appear stable, much of that water is unsafe or too costly to treat.
The report adds that the planetary freshwater boundary has already been crossed. Both blue water, surface and groundwater, and green water, soil moisture, have been pushed beyond a safe operating space.
Current governance systems, the authors argue, are not fit for this reality. Many legal water rights and development promises far exceed degraded hydrological capacity. Existing global agendas, focused largely on drinking water access, sanitation, and incremental efficiency gains, are inadequate for managing irreversible loss.
“Water bankruptcy must be recognized as a distinct post-crisis state, where accumulated damage and overshoot have undermined the system’s capacity to recover,” the report says.
Water bankruptcy could result in a further increase in conflicts. Credit: UNU-INWEH
It warns that the implications of water bankruptcy are dire.
UN Under-Secretary-General Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of UNU explains, “Waterbankruptcy is becoming a driver of fragility, displacement, and conflict. Managing it fairly—ensuring that vulnerable communities are protected and that unavoidable losses are shared equitably—is now central to maintaining peace, stability, and social cohesion.”
Policy Implications
Instead of crisis management aimed at restoring the past, the report actually pitches for bankruptcy management. That means acknowledging insolvency, accepting irreversibility, and restructuring water use, rights, and institutions to prevent further damage.
The authors lay stress on the fact that water bankruptcy is also a justice and security issue. The costs of overshoot fall disproportionately on small farmers, rural communities, women, Indigenous peoples, and downstream users, while benefits have often accrued to more powerful actors.
“How societies manage water bankruptcy will shape social cohesion, political stability, and peace,” the report warns.
Furthermore, it urges governments and international institutions to use upcoming UN Water Conferences in 2026 and 2028 as milestones to reset the global water agenda, calling for water to be treated as an upstream sector central to climate action, biodiversity protection, food security, and peace.
“This is about a crisis that might arrive in the future. The world is already living beyond its hydrological means,” reads the report.
When asked why the report frames water bankruptcy as a justice and security issue and how governments can implement painful demand reductions without triggering social unrest or conflict, Madani said the demand reduction becomes dangerous when it is treated as a technical exercise instead of a political economy reform. In many water-bankrupt regions, according to him, water is effectively a jobs policy: it keeps low-productivity farming and local economies afloat.
“If you cut water without an economic transition, you create unemployment, food insecurity, and unrest. So the practical pathway is to decouple livelihoods and growth from water consumption. In many economies, water and other natural resources are used to keep low-efficiency systems alive. In most places, it is possible to produce more strategic food with less water and less land, and with fewer farmers—provided that farmers are supported through a transition and offered alternative livelihoods.”
According to Madani, governments should protect basic needs but target the big reductions where most water is used, especially agriculture and besides that, pair caps with a just transition package for farmers—compensation, insurance, buy-down or retirement of water entitlements where relevant, and real income alternatives.
He further suggests that the governments should invest in diversification, including services, industry, value-added agri-processing, and urban jobs, so communities can earn a living without expanding water withdrawals.
“In short, you avoid conflict by making demand reduction part of a broader economic transition, not a standalone water policy.”
