Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
Inside Geneva
Can the UN and international law survive?
In 2024 there are more than 100 conflicts ongoing, worldwide. A record number of aid workers have been killed.
Tom Fletcher, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator: ‘It’s not just the ferocity of these conflicts, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria. It’s about that wilful neglect of international humanitarian law. And as a result we seem to have lost our anchor somehow. That scaffolding, that we felt was there, international humanitarian law that I was hoping we’d be taking for granted at this point, is shaking.’
Inside Geneva asks whether we have given up on international law.
Nico Krisch, Professor of International Law, Geneva Graduate Institute: If I see the Europeans talks about international law and the rules based order, but then keep supporting Israel in the face of the International Court of Justice - deliver weapons, not take part in the negotiations on the legally binding instrument on business and human rights that many countries in the global south want, then I ask well, what do you really mean by your commitment to international law and multilateralism?
Can the United Nations survive such double standards?
Richard Gowan, Crisis Group: I think the rest of the UN membership is watching this, they’re seeing a fragmenting international order, and they are profoundly frustrated.
And what about the long term effects of so much violence, for the perpetrators as well as the victims?
Cordula Droege, Chief Legal Officer, ICRC: Humanitarian law is also based on the fact that to dehumanise your enemy means that you also dehumanise yourself. And if you do it on a large scale you dehumanise the entire society and the fabric of society.
Is the age of multilateralism, cooperation, the ‘rules based order’ over?
Jan Egeland, Secretary General, Norwegian Refugee Council: The ideals were shared by more governments, there was more unity of purpose. And today there is more nationalism, introspection, skepticism. Europe first, America first, me first, rather than humanity first.
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, imogen Foulkes, and this is a production from Swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland.
Speaker 3:In today's programme, the Gaza Health Ministry says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the October 7th Hamas massacre in Israel that triggered the war.
Speaker 1:If I see the Europeans talk about international law and the rules-based order, but then keep supporting Israel in the face of the International Court of Justice, deliver weapons, not taking part in negotiations on the legally binding instrument on business and human rights that many countries in the global south want, then I ask well, what do you really mean by your commitment to international law and multilateralism? Even the littlest even?
Speaker 2:those unable to walk were forced to flee when Sudan's army and a paramilitary force turned their guns on each other last year.
Speaker 4:I think the rest of the UN membership is watching this. They're seeing a fragmenting international order and they're profoundly frustrated.
Speaker 3:Here in hearings at the Hague, Israel has been accused by South Africa of engaging in genocide in Gaza.
Speaker 5:Humanitarian law is also based on the fact that to dehumanize your enemy means that you dehumanize yourself, and if you do it on a large scale, you dehumanize the entire society and the fabric of society.
Speaker 4:No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals.
Speaker 6:The ideals were shared by more governments, there was more unity of purpose, and today there is more nationalism, introspection, skepticism. Europe first, america first, me first, rather than humanity first.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the last Inside Geneva of 2024. I'm Imogen Fowkes and, because it's the last episode of the year and it's been a pretty difficult year, we're going to take a long, hard look at some of the challenges faced by the United Nations and by humanitarian agencies, because those challenges are really the challenges that face our world, whether it's the Middle East, sudan, climate change or Ukraine. Our political leaders seem neither willing or able to resolve them effectively. Over the next half hour, we'll talk to leading humanitarians, analysts and international lawyers about why that is and whether the UN multilateralism and what's called the rules-based order can survive. Let's begin by hearing from Richard Gowan, un Director at the Crisis Group.
Speaker 4:I think it's been a very turbulent year for the United Nations, primarily because we're seeing major power competition and arguments over Ukraine and Gaza proving more and more toxic inside the Security Council. We're seeing Russia and the US, in particular, frequently using their vetoes in the Council, and I think the rest of the UN membership is watching this. They're seeing a fragmenting international order and they're profoundly frustrated, and I you know you talk to diplomats from around the world and the first question they will ask you is how do we persuade our political masters back in our capitals that this thing, the UN, is really helpful to them?
Speaker 2:Well, this is the thing you hear it in some of the founding members of the United Nations, a kind of narrative that this body is increasingly irrelevant. And of course, it's not just a narrative. We now have policies which are forcing the UN into irrelevance, so that's what it feels like in Geneva.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think we have to step back and we have to recognise that diplomats can fret, un officials can worry about their contracts, but the organisation is still doing a huge amount globally and humanitarian agencies peacekeeping operations are still functioning and doing some good worldwide.
Speaker 1:Breaking overnight. Critically needed humanitarian aid has started rolling into Gaza.
Speaker 2:So, despite the friction at the UN Security Council, gowan argues, the humanitarian wing of the UN is still working, but how effectively when the big powers are so divided? Let's talk to seasoned humanitarian worker, jan Eglund, who led the UN's emergency response during the biggest natural disaster the world has ever seen.
Speaker 1:Tens of millions of tonnes of water unthinkably powerful are driven onto shores across the Indian Ocean. The world has never faced a humanitarian disaster on this scale in peacetime.
Speaker 6:The challenge now is to help the survivors in 10 ravaged countries. The Indian Ocean tsunami was, of course, unique because it was nature at its worst but humanity at our best. I mean we raised $12 billion in weeks. All of the countries devastated by the tsunami were fully rebuilt, basically with international help. The whole world was seized by the misery caused and donated. Private sector came like never before. There were 450 international aid groups involved. That came then just after we had initiated a major also response for the Darfur crisis. We were able to get precedence from President Bush in the White House and Prime Minister Blair in London the prime ministers and presidents across Europe Fast forward 20 years and the crisis in Darfur and Sudan is three times as big and we meet neglect, to a large extent disinterest. So I think there is also some things changed. There was more—I think the ideals were shared by more governments. There was more unity of purpose and today there is more nationalism, introspection, skepticism and Europe first, america first, me first, rather than humanity first.
Speaker 2:Where does that leave? Somewhere like Gaza. Then who's going to rebuild Gaza?
Speaker 6:Rebuilding Gaza and Lebanon and Sudan or the ruins still there in Syria? No, I don't know really, because we also have a time with a new Cold War. So the US is routinely vetoing all resolutions on Gaza and Russia vetoed a resolution on Sudan that wasn't even that concrete but it sort of wished to do more on behalf of the UN and on behalf of the international community and Russia vetoes that, probably because of the US vetoes on Gaza and Western support for Ukraine and the war. That Cold War is not helping us. I think we humanitarians feel more alone now than we were 20 years ago.
Speaker 2:The big powers at loggerheads and the UN and its humanitarian workers more alone than ever. So where does that leave us? Richard Gowan again.
Speaker 4:We are, if we are honest, at the end of a 30-year period where the UN was able to expand and raise its ambitions in the context of a US-led world order, and even regardless of what has just happened in the US elections, it is clear that that order and that period of cooperation is coming to an end and we're entering a period of competition where the space for the UN to act on many issues will be more narrow and more difficult than it was before.
Speaker 2:I agree with you that the foundations were shaking a bit, obviously before November 2024. We've had a lot of challenges, but with an incoming Donald Trump administration we are looking at something different. I think. I'm just wondering where do you see the casualties Climate change, gaza, two-state solution, a deal on Ukraine where Ukraine has to give up territory?
Speaker 4:I think the first thing to say is that I have been struck that since Trump won the election, the mood around the UN has been resignation rather than outright panic. So there is an expectation that the Trump administration will pull out of all the things that he pulled out of last time, including the Paris climate change agreement. He pulled out of last time, including the Paris climate change agreement. We would assume the US will break off contact with the Human Rights Council, as it did in Trump's first term. This is all factored in. We also assume that the US is going to hack some big chunks out of UN budgets. And then there are all the political questions. I mean, obviously the US will double down on support for Israel at the UN, but will it try and impose or reimpose UN sanctions on Iran? That's certainly a possibility. Will it take steps at the UN to alienate China? I mean a lot of. You know there's a lot of turbulence ahead.
Speaker 1:There are new developments this morning in Ukraine's first war crimes trial In court this morning, the Russian soldier Israel has presented its defence at the International Court of Justice after South Africa argued its committing genocide in Gaza.
Speaker 2:But the challenge to global stability stems not just from disagreements among the big powers. It also comes, Jan Egland believes, from a disregard for international law, the rules we all agreed to after the Second World War. What concerns?
Speaker 6:me is precisely this that many of our safest and closest and most generous allies have questioned humanitarian law of armed conflict, questioned the refugee convention's existence, questioned international justice regimes, questioned the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, etc. That's new. I mean, it's not a new thing that warlords and dictators do not like us and our advocacy and our presence and so on. That's not new. Actually. The 1990s was, of course, much more bloody than this period is and I'm old enough to remember many are not. The number of civilians killed was far bigger in that kind of wars, with genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia, in Kosovo and elsewhere. But it's a new thing, basically, that the International Criminal Court is questioned by the Western countries that negotiated the deal, as if they now in a way agree with yeah, no, these criminal justice regimes. That's for African warlords, it's not for our allies. I don't like it at all and I think we have to fight it.
Speaker 3:So the world is on fire. The reality is, as you know well, that we are dealing with a poly-crisis right now, globally.
Speaker 2:That disregard is taking its toll on humanitarian workers, who have been killed in record numbers this year. When Tom Fletcher, newly appointed UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, came to Geneva to launch his funding appeal for 2025, he too voiced concern about neglect for international law.
Speaker 3:It's not just the ferocity of these conflicts Gaza, ukraine, sudan, syria it's about that willful neglect of international humanitarian law and, as a result, we seem to have lost our anchor somehow. That scaffolding that we felt was there international humanitarian law that I was hoping that we'd be taking for granted at this point is shaking.
Speaker 2:So how worried should we be? Someone who keeps a close eye on these things is Nico Krisch, Professor of International Law at Geneva's Graduate Institute.
Speaker 1:I guess we're really seeing more now. We have more violent conflicts going on now than we had in previous decades and clearly there are many more violations taking place and they're taking place more clearly on our screens. We see them in the media. So quite likely we're living in a time of higher numbers of violations and more willful neglect of international law. But at the same time, of course, I think we have also higher expectations.
Speaker 1:In many ways people 30 years back, 40 years back, wouldn't have expected so much of international law. They wouldn't have thought that criminals would be brought to international justice, war criminals. They might not have expected so much in terms of human rights. Now, if you look at statistics of human rights compliance, the levels of human rights compliance go down, but they're still now higher than they've been at any point before 1999. So in a sense I think we're coming from a relatively high point in terms of human rights, international humanitarian law compliance and it's going down. Clearly it's getting worse. At the same time, I think we shouldn't lose perspective and see kind of that we're still in a different era than we were 50 years ago.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, though, I sense a stretching of the unity around some of these norms. I mean, I was talking to young people from the global south yesterday, and there's enormous disenchantment with what they see as double standards, and one of them said to me it's always the same the traditional world powers. They preach water to us and they drink wine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's been a long-standing problem in a sense, and some that could be kind of ignored by the West and the North for some time, because the power relations were just so clearly in their favor that you didn't need to listen too much to this.
Speaker 1:Now, clearly, the situation has changed and that's become a serious issue. And if I see the Europeans talk about international law and the rules-based order, but then, when it matters, turn away, keep supporting Israel in the face of the International Court of Justice, deliver weapons, even not taking part in negotiations on the legally binding instrument on business and human rights that many countries in the global south want, voting against or abstaining the global framework on tax that passed in the General Assembly recently, then I ask well, what do you really mean by your commitment to international law and multilateralism? Is it serious, or is it only good when it pleases your goals and for the rest of it, you just do without? This idea of the rules-based order that the West has now been preaching for some years clearly is something that many countries around the world and publics around the world are not buying, because they say well, there's never been a rules-based order for us, because you've always violated our rights whenever it pleased you, and you've claimed from us compliance with the rules whenever you needed it.
Speaker 2:Just up the street from Nico Krisch, at the Graduate Institute, is the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of the Geneva Conventions. International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of the Geneva Conventions. Every state on the planet has signed up to them and the ICRC's chief legal officer, cordula Droga, is also concerned.
Speaker 5:If you look at conflicts now, you see, of course, widespread violations and destruction and death and injury, and not all destruction and death and injury in armed conflict is contrary to international humanitarian law, because international humanitarian law only guarantees a minimum protection. So even if international humanitarian law is protected, you will have great suffering and conflicts. There's no such thing as a humane conflict. We see two things, though. We see, on the one hand, this blatant disregard with, you know, parties just denying the facts, denying that they are committing rape, torture, targeting civilians. But you also have a more pernicious phenomenon whereby states will actually go out of their way to justify under the law that they can target hospitals because they are being misused and therefore they become military objectives, and that it's not disproportionate to you know, therefore destroy them entirely. Or, after 9-11, there was a whole attempt to redefine what torture is, so that certain pain inflicted on detainees would be justified under the conventions by saying this isn't torture, because torture isn't defined like this, and we see this today as well.
Speaker 2:Does this concern you? I mean, are we in danger of losing these standards? I mean, we brought them in post-World War II for some very good reasons. Are we in danger of losing them?
Speaker 5:Yes, I think we're in danger of losing them in several ways. One is if you interpret them to the point of hollowing them out completely and they have no protective value. That's one way of losing them. We also risk losing them because then those who suffer from the consequences don't believe that the law is there to protect them anymore. And we also risk losing them in a much more literal sense because, as you know, we now have states that withdraw from some IHL conventions. We have Lithuania that withdrew from the Convention Against Cluster Munitions. We now have reports of states using more and more anti-personnel mines, and we have states thinking about whether they should withdraw from the anti-personnel mine ban convention. So you have the most basic conventions, which ban weapons that are considered to be indiscriminate, and they are being reopened and they are being questioned.
Speaker 2:What do you fear? The consequences of this? I mean, it sounds like a slippery downward slope.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think the slippery slope image is exactly the image it's really. Sometimes I feel it could all unravel before us, because every state always feels that the conflict that is their conflict is new and is different and that the rules aren't appropriate for that particular conflict. We've seen this very often with states fighting non-state armed groups that they consider terrorist groups. We see it sometimes with non-state armed groups which say, well, but we are fighting these kinds of states, so how do you expect us to have the rules? And now we see this fear of international armed conflict, of conflict between states, and thereby states saying, well, therefore we need more leeway for our military action, and I think we need to counter it and we need to repeat what international humanitarian law was made for from the start.
Speaker 5:It was always made with conflicts in mind. That's what they're about. Always made with conflicts in mind. That's what they're about. So you cannot say that they're okay in peacetime, that they're sort of fair weather conventions that have to go out the window once conflict breaks out, because they were always made with conflicts in mind. And while conflicts change the consequences that these conventions seek to prohibit or limit, they don't change. So the suffering of the civilian population doesn't change, no matter what conflict there is. The need for the wounded and sick to be collected and cared for and treated doesn't change, no matter the conflict and the indiscriminate nature of weapons doesn't change.
Speaker 3:It is a vast, unfolding crisis.
Speaker 4:Tens of thousands hungry frightened, told by Israel to leave.
Speaker 1:Today, the world's top war crimes court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister.
Speaker 2:Yoav Galant. The concerns over respect for international law have come into sharp focus in relation to Gaza. Some UN member states are angry at what they see as blatant double standards. The US has dismissed the decisions of renowned lawyers at the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli government leaders as outrageous, and there has been an apparent abandonment of the commitment to a two-state solution. So how can faith in the multilateral system even survive? That's a question I put to the crisis group's Richard Gowan.
Speaker 4:Most US observers, and maybe a lot of European observers, don't realise exactly how existential the Palestinian question is for many members of the UN.
Speaker 4:There is a real sense that the UN has been dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian situation almost since its foundation, and for a lot of countries from the global south, resolving the Palestinian question is one of the last unfinished pieces of business left over from the anti-colonial struggle. And so if we have a situation where the Trump administration comes in and one of its first steps is to back an Israeli annexation of some or all of the West Bank which is certainly something that we're hearing be a real blow to, firstly, perceptions of the UN, of the US at the UN, which have already taken a beating because of Biden's stance over Gaza, but secondly, of the credibility of the UN as a whole for all these countries that have kept faith with it as the space to deal with the future of the Palestinians, and Jan Eglund, not only a man with more than three decades experience in humanitarian work, but before that, one of the Norwegian diplomats who worked on the Oslo Accord aimed at shaping a two-state solution.
Speaker 2:Cautions against one superpower trying to impose solutions, whether in Gaza or in Ukraine. The UN is the only forum he argues for such diplomacy.
Speaker 6:I think the recent two years have shown the UN is needed more than ever. I mean, there was no alternative. Look at how NATO tried, built a new Afghanistan that was in the image, in a way, of the NATO countries. It cost a trillion dollars before they went for the door three years back. The UN has, in spite of all, a better track record in saving countries, providing peace, coordinating humanitarian assistance than any other organization, also because there isn't really much alternative. But it requires more unity of leadership. I also think we really, as aid groups, humanitarian groups, human rights groups, solidarity groups, need to be a little bit better in really designing solutions and not just have this repeat thing that it's really bad in place A and B. The world must wake up and let's have another seminar about it.
Speaker 2:So can those committed to the UN and to international law be proactive, engage in meaningful activity, something more than, as Egland puts it, holding seminars. Nico Krisch has some thoughts.
Speaker 1:I think what really is required now is that we form an alliance of those that support those kinds of rules, that are serious about them and that are also ready to pay a cost, pay a price, for that seriousness. Now, it's quite likely that the US is not going to be among those for the next few years, but maybe one can do things without the US. And there are enough states around, especially smaller states, mid-sized states, that care a lot about international law, depend a lot on international law and, as a result, are ready to reinvigorate it to some extent. And I think, kind of from that basis there's a possibility of generating more support.
Speaker 1:There's much support among civil society, much support among the public. There's a much greater attachment to international law Now among many people across the world. They know much more about international law and they think, well, there's a promise there that we can draw upon. So I think we shouldn't simply let all hope slide away, but I think it takes a real consensus building effort to gather that kind of alliance, and that also means that countries have to make compromises. So I think we have to remind people that international law and multilateralism, the UN, is something that can't be there only if it serves your own purposes, but that as a space that we need to value, because otherwise we just cannot support peace and achieve the goals that we want to achieve. That really requires an effort and commitment and a readiness to say well, we work together and we make the necessary compromises.
Speaker 2:The countries you might expect to respond to that kind of plea were traditionally in Europe, but with shaky governments in France and Germany and uncertainty over the ongoing war in Ukraine, will they stand up for international law and the rules-based order? Richard Gowan has his doubts.
Speaker 4:The question I would put to people sitting in Geneva or Strasbourg, where these things are supposed to matter, is do you really think that defending the multilateral order is the number one priority right now in Paris or London or Berlin? Because there is a difference here between 2017 and Trump's first administration and today. Back in 2017, 2018, the Europeans had the resources and they had the bandwidth to mount a fairly serious defence of multilateralism. You'll remember that Germany and France set up this rather strange body, the Alliance for Multilateralism, which was really basically meant to be a counterweight to US disengagement, and that worked.
Speaker 4:I do actually think that members of the EU played a significant role in defending the UN system during Trump's first term, but now, if you're sitting in any major European capital, you're not worrying about the future of UNESCO or the Human Rights Council. You're worrying about the future of NATO. You're worrying about the future of Article 5. And, regardless of the US, you have much less money than you used to Aid. Budgets have been collapsing, western governments need to put money into defence, and so I just wonder whether the Europeans are going to have the bandwidth and the financial weight to really fill the gap that significant US disengagement with the UN could create.
Speaker 2:Some people would argue, though, that say, the defence of human rights, international humanitarian law and you know people get fed up with this either or equation, it's us looking after ourselves, or it's us giving something to those poor people caught up in a war or a famine that these things are actually not mutually exclusive, and if we don't defend them, it will contribute to instability at home as well.
Speaker 4:I mean, I would be one of the people who said that right. You know, I believe that quite strongly. And so European countries, like it or not, are going to have to probably devote more time and more attention to trying to stabilise their southern flank. Work with the AU, work out how to fund peace operations in Somalia, work out how to fund peace operations in Somalia and, yeah, protect multilateralism there. We can't just focus on Moscow, we can't just focus on Europe's eastern flank. We do need to have a more global understanding of how we deal with some of the instability that Trump might create.
Speaker 2:Jan Eglin, too, too, is sceptical that Europe, with its current focus on reinforcing its fortress against migrants, remains committed to upholding international law.
Speaker 6:It is interesting how the conventions for refugees came in the early 1950s because the Europeans really we felt sorry for ourselves because we were refugees after the Second World War. So the refugees should have rights really and they should be guaranteed. Europe had suffered enough and now Europe is full-time burying that convention and have a European championship in barbed wire erection and the Geneva principles of do not attack those who are not fighting. It's the golden rule. It was there since Anguillet-Denard and the Battle of Solferino in 1858. Now it seems not. Now it's okay to bomb hospitals because there might be a militant there somewhere. It's not, it's a war crime. Has been for a hundred years.
Speaker 5:Black smoke billows Caked in dust.
Speaker 3:Survivors emerge these nightmarish scenes as Israeli forces once again attack Al-Shifa Hospital.
Speaker 1:Nine people have been killed and dozens wounded after a series of Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital, including an attack on a children's hospital.
Speaker 2:Not attacking hospitals, not targeting civilians or their homes, schools, churches, mosques or museums. We do, in theory, all agree on these principles, although we may not honour them. In the week the UN appealed for $47 billion to help civilians affected by conflict, the ICRC's Cordula Droga reminds us that it may be worth our while to follow the rules, because, however much we may want to defeat our enemy, war is so very costly.
Speaker 5:If you uphold the rules of not targeting civilian objects, not targeting hospitals, not targeting schools, not targeting electricity grids, not targeting energy infrastructure, water systems, you will already have a cost to these conflicts that's much more limited and a possibility also to get out of conflicts and reconstruct that is easier. So international humanitarian law is not made to prevent conflicts and it's also not a body of law that is made as such to get out of conflict. It's really made to protect victims of armed conflict. But it's very obvious that if you respect international humanitarian law, it will create pathways to get out of conflict.
Speaker 2:And she continues. If that appeal doesn't work, there is another one to our consciences, perhaps to our souls.
Speaker 5:I profoundly believe and I think humanitarian law is also based on the fact that to dehumanize your enemy means that you dehumanize yourself and if you do it on a large scale, you dehumanize the entire society and the fabric of society. And you have to look at yourself. I think and think how do you want to come out of this conflict? How do you want to look at yourself when you finish the conflict and look at yourself and see what have I done in this conflict? How have I behaved in this conflict? And we know that people who commit serious violations are also traumatized by the violations that they suffer from, the consequences of having to live with the fact that they committed atrocities. And I think there is also a self-interest there to be able to live with yourself after the conflict.
Speaker 2:Those wise words from Cordula Droga end this edition of Inside Geneva. We hope this episode has provided some food for thought and perhaps even inspired some of our listeners to remind their own governments why international law, the Geneva Conventions and even the cooperation the United Nations encourages are so important. Thanks so much for listening and from all of us here at Swiss Info, we wish you a happy and hopefully peaceful new year. A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info production. You can email us on insidegeneva at swissinfoch and subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks again for listening.
