When the Truth Becomes a Lie: What Trump’s Election Means for the World as we Know it

Civil Society, Democracy, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, addresses the General Debate of the General Assembly’s 75th session September 2020. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

NEW YORK, Nov 8 2024 (IPS) – On the day following the US election, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres issued a brief statement commending the people of the United States for their active participation in the democratic process. He wisely omitted to mention that the election of Donald J. Trump – who attempted to overturn the people’s mandate by inciting an insurrection in 2020 – is a major setback for the UN’s worldwide quest to advance human rights and the rule of law.


Trump is a self-avowed admirer of authoritarian strongmen like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban who disdain international norms that the UN seeks to uphold. Unsurprisingly, questions posed to the UN Secretary General’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, in a press conference on November 6, ranged from what will be Trump’s response to the war in Ukraine to potential funding cuts that might come with the new US administration to whether the UN has contingency plans ready for when Trump takes office.

The US plays an outsized role in global affairs. Therefore, any changes in policy in Washington impact the whole world. As someone who bears responsibility for stewarding a global civil society alliance, it worries me what a second Trump presidency will unleash.

Even without Trump in power we are living in a world where wars are being conducted with complete disregard for the rules; corrupt billionaires are dictating public policy for their benefit; and greed induced environmental degradation is putting us on a path to climate catastrophe. Hard fought gains on gender justice are in danger of being rolled back.

The first Trump administration showed disdain for the UN Human Rights Council and pulled the US out of vital global commitments such as the Paris Agreement to combat climate change. It restricted support for civil society groups around the world and targeted those that sought to promote sexual and reproductive rights of women. Promotion of democracy and human rights are key pillars of US foreign policy.

It’s deeply concerning that when disinformation and misinformation have assumed pandemic level proportions, the majority of the US electorate have cast their vote in favour of a candidate who ran his campaign on divisive dog whistles, half-truths and outright lies. These tactics have deepened fissures in an already polarized United States.

Families countrywide were left devastated by Trump’s negligence and COVID denialism as president which resulted in tens of thousands of Americans dying of avoidable infections. His administration’s immigration detention and deportation policies instilled fear in minority communities. This time Trump has vowed to deport millions of people.

Trump’s stances on abortion rights have caused women immeasurable suffering in several US states that have introduced laws to ban the procedure. He has promised to accelerate harmful fossil fuel extraction and undoubtedly views gender justice advocates, environmental defenders and migrant rights activists as a threat his power.

Given the stated predilections of Trump and his advisors, opposition politicians, activists and journalists exposing corruption and rights violations are likely to be at risk of enhanced surveillance, intimidation and persecution by the new administration.

At the international level, Trump’s election casts a pall over efforts to ensure accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sudan and Ukraine due to his tacit support for authoritarian leaders in Israel, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, all of whom are fueling conflicts and causing havoc abroad. A future Trump administration could try to starve the UN of funding to erode the rules based international order, emboldening autocrats.

Even if things appear bleak today, it’s important to remember that there are hundreds and thousands of civil society activists and organisations around the world who remain steadfast in their resolve to celebrate diversity and promote justice and equality. To imagine the future we sometimes have to take heart from the past.

India’s freedom struggle, South Africa’s struggle against apartheid and the civil rights movement in the United States wasn’t won by authoritarian leaders but by brave and determined individuals united in solidarity and determined to resist oppression for as long as it takes.

There is a lesson here for civil society in the US that higher American ideals are worth standing up for and will outlive any sitting president.

Mandeep S. Tiwana is Interim Co-Secretary General of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He also serves as CIVICUS representative to the United Nations.

IPS UN Bureau

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UN Arms Embargo on Israel: Dead on Arrival

Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Featured, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Middle East & North Africa, TerraViva United Nations

In Khan Younis, thousands of people are fleeing for their lives again. Credit: UNRWA

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 8 2024 (IPS) – When the United Nations imposes sanctions or penalizes a member state – be it the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council – the resolutions are “non-binding” and often remain unimplemented.

But the Security Council resolutions are “binding” – and still openly violated by countries such as North Korea—because all these UN bodies have no means of implementing these resolutions, nor a standing army to forcibly enforce them. But they only carry moral weight.


The Council can also impose its own sanctions, mostly in economic, financial and trade sectors, against violators of its decisions.

And last week there was a move to impose arms sanctions against Israel – and rightly so, judging by the 43,000 plus, mostly Palestinian civilians, killed in Gaza largely with US-supplied weapons since October last year.

But how effective will this be since the strongest opposition will come from the US, an unyielding supporter of Israel, which will unhesitatingly use its veto power if the resolution comes before the Security Council?

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former UN Under-Secretary-General and one-time Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations, told IPS anything short of a real, permanent ceasefire would not create a pathway to end the perpetration of the ongoing genocidal aggression by Israel.

In this context, he said, the joint letter calling on all countries to stop the sale of arms and ammunition to Israel, signed by 52 countries and two UN-recognized multilateral organizations, is meaningfully forward-looking, and contains a purposeful objective of contributing to that “pathway”.

In fact, the Foreign Minister of Turkiye, whose country initiated the letter, asserted that “We must repeat at every opportunity that selling arms to Israel means participating in its genocide.”

“It would be argued rightfully that the United Nations and its apex body, the General Assembly have no powers to enforce such an arms embargo. The Security Council, the sole UN entity which can authorize an arms embargo and obligate the arms suppliers desist from sending arms to the areas of conflict, also becomes powerless if one of the P-5 uses the notorious veto”.

“However, I strongly believe that a General Assembly resolution following the call for the arms embargo to Israel would have a moral value which has its own merit. Despite the politics and power-play which is destroying the UN’s credibility and marginalizing its operational capacity to resolve conflicts, the arms embargo would highlight the principled position taken by the UN,” said Ambassador Chowdhury.

In a way, he pointed out, that would strengthen the Secretary-General’s efforts to promote the much-needed ceasefire.

In the aftermath of Israel’s declaration of the Secretary General as persona non-grata (PNG) and its extension of the attacks on UNIFIL in Lebanon, the General Assembly needs to show that its moral and normative role as envisaged in the UN Charter has not been cowed down by the politics of the frequently-used threat of veto, he declared.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS: “This initiative reflects the view of the vast majority of the world’s governments and peoples and is consistent with imperatives of international humanitarian law, but given that the major arms supplier of Israel is a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, it is unlikely to have much of an impact.”

Also problematic, he pointed out, is that some of the countries sponsoring the initiative, such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, have been guilty not only of similarly providing weapons to those engaging in war crimes but engaging in war crimes themselves.

Turkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan said last week his country had submitted a letter to the United Nations, signed by 52 countries and two inter-governmental organizations, calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel.

“We have written a joint letter calling on all countries to stop the sale of arms and ammunition to Israel. We delivered this letter, which has 54 signatories, to the UN on November 1,” said Fidan, according to the Times of Israel.

“We must repeat at every opportunity that selling arms to Israel means participating in its genocide,” said Fidan, adding that the letter is “an initiative launched by Turkiye.”

Among the signatories were Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Algeria, China, Iran and Russia, plus the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),

Elaborating further, Ambassador Chowdhury said the UN should not forget that the UN’s International Court of Justice which determined that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank is illegal under international law. The judgment was followed by a General Assembly resolution last September, demanding Israel leave the occupied territories within a year.

“I am encouraged by the UN’s own 45 Human Rights Experts and Special Rapporteurs, who, driven by their conscience, forcefully called for a ‘permanent ceasefire, … an ‘arms embargo on all warring parties,’ and ‘the deployment of an international protective presence in the occupied Palestinian territory under the supervision of the UN.’ All these well-thought-out measures would only promote dialogue and diplomacy over death and destruction”.

The UN Secretary-General needs to endorse and welcome this call by his in-house experts and recommend to the General Assembly to do the same without any delay, he declared.

Back in April 2024, in a resolution adopted by 28 votes in favour, six against and 13 abstentions, the 47-member Human Rights Council backed a call “to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, the occupying Power…to prevent further violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights”.

Presented by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, delegates heard that the resolution had also been motivated by the need to stop “egregious” human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Co-sponsors of the text included Bolivia, Cuba and the State of Palestine, ahead of the vote which saw support from more than two dozen countries including Brazil, China, Luxembourg, Malaysia and South Africa, according to UN News.

Unlike the UN Security Council, Human Rights Council resolutions are not legally binding on States but carry significant moral weight, and in this instance is intended to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as well as potentially influence national policy decisions.

Israel’s two largest arms sources, the United States and Germany, have resisted calls for an embargo on Israel, though each has been accused of withholding certain arms during the war.

In an October 2024 report, the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI) said in the past decade, Israel has greatly increased its imports of arms. SIPRI estimates that in the five-year period 2019–23, Israel was the world’s 15th largest importer of major arms, accounting for 2.1 per cent of global arms imports in the period. In 2009–13 it ranked only 47th.

Although only three countries supplied major arms to Israel in 2019–23, the United States, Germany and Italy, many others supplied military components, ammunition or services. The three other global major arms exporters among the top 10: the United Kingdom, France and Spain.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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