The End of the United Nations at a League of Nations Moment?

Daniel Warner

 February 7, 2025
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“The League is dead,” Robert Cecil solemnly declared on April 18, 1946, addressing delegates from 34 countries at the League of Nations headquarters in Geneva. The death of the League was not the immediate end of a worldwide international organization dedicated to cooperation, negotiation and the rule of law. After announcing the end of the League, Cecil did say right after announcing the League’s cessation, “Long live the United Nations.” The birth of the U.N. was included in the League’s termination. But could we now be witnessing the death throes of the U.N. with no future organization on the horizon? Can we imagine someone in the near future saying, “The United Nations is dead” without a follow-up?

The panic in Geneva these days is palpable. International Geneva with its 40 international institutions and 750 non-governmental organizations is under attack. Donald Trump’s assaults on international cooperation, be they unilateral tariff increases, withdrawing from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords or gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development which distributed $43.79 billion in foreign assistance in fiscal year 2023 are sending tremors throughout the City of Calvin. Over 35,000 internationalists in Geneva are wondering how and if they will continue functioning under the Trump administration. Without United States funding, many of the multilateral and civil society bodies will no longer be fully operative with global consequences for millions dependent on multilateral aid and assistance; many aid workers will lose their jobs.

President Trump is downsizing the United States’ foreign presence in a similar fashion he is downsizing the United States government. The United Nations and many of its specialized agencies as well as global voluntary organizations are obvious targets in the Musk/Trump culling of public institutions.

Historically, the U.S. has not always been in the forefront of multilateralism. Jennifer Mittelstadt recently described what she called this American “sovereigntist” tradition. The United States was not one of the High Contracting Parties to the League of Nations. Although President Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 Fourteen Points included a “league of nations to ensure peace and justice,” the Senate refused to ratify the Versailles Treaty.

But it was not only the U.S. non-presence that caused the League’s ending. The League of Nations’ downfall is primarily associated with its inability to stop Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), Japan’s invasion of China, and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Finland. Today, with the United States present at the U.N., the League’s failures are similar to the U.N.’s inability to curtail the Russian invasion of Ukraine or change Israel’s genocidal actions in the Middle East.

Is the U.S.’s presence a cause of the U.N.’s downfall? Although one of the moving forces behind the establishment of the U.N, the U.S. has been instrumental in the United Nations’ decline. By continuing to support Israel in the Security Council and supplying weapons to Israel despite repeated international condemnations of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Netanyahu, the U.S. is undermining the U.N.’s legitimacy. The Global South dismisses U.S. hypocrisy in supporting Israel while condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s threats to Panama, Mexico, Canada, Colombia and Denmark are diametrically opposed to the peaceful resolution of disputes and challenge the U.S. publicly prioritizing the rule of law. So while sovereigntists may prioritize nationalism within sovereign equality, Trump’s MAGA sovereigntists prioritize U.S. sovereign domination by the use of force, including threats.

This is why “America First” is fundamentally anathema to international cooperation. Although each country has its own interests, working together on global issues like climate change or resolving disputes through peaceful negotiations or arbitration is a form of enlightened self-interest. Some form of global order depends on universally accepted guidelines. As an example of self-destruction, Trump seems determined to start trade wars even with U.S. allies and neighbors. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (followed by the World Trade Organization (WTO)) was designed to settle trade disputes peacefully. How can a country cry trade “victim” when the U.S. continues to block the functioning of the WTO’s Appellate Body which is authorized to arbitrate free and fair trade?

International order requires functioning international institutions, peaceful negotiations and diplomacy. The League of Nations came about because rational people tried to stop a repetition of the horrors of World War I. The United Nations came about because rational people tried to stop a repetition of the horrors of World War II. We shouldn’t need another world war to understand the importance of international cooperation. Independent, autonomous countries living in co-existence is no longer possible. The German philosopher Hans Jonas, for example, wrote about the necessity of cooperation in the technological age. Contemporary interdependence facing global challenges such as climate change and pandemics requires cooperation.

A revisiting of soft power is in order. Rather than hard power sword rattling, a return to soft power is needed. “[W]hen one country gets other countries to want what it wants might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants,” wrotethe Harvard scholar Joseph Nye in his 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. Dialogue, compromise, and consensus are all part of soft power. The end of the League came about when countries relied on hard power to settle their disputes. Trump continues to use hard power even domestically by not following the Constitution. New York real estate salesman wheeling and dealing is not the same as following the rule or law internally as well as in foreign affairs as president.

The United Nations is now at a similar inflection point to the League’s position in the 1930s. When the League ended, the United Nations and several of its agencies became operative. Today, the United Nations and many of its specialized agencies are failing in their primary roles of maintaining international peace and security and promoting international justice. While some specific agencies continue to carry out their mandates, the overall organization is failing.

Are we witnessing the U.N. going the way of the League with no other worldwide international institution ready to take its place? Instead of blaming the League’s termination on a U.S. passive failure, today the decline of the U.N. can be traced to active U.S. policies. If the U.N. goes the way of the League, this time the major culprit clearly sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Daniel Warner is the author of An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations. (Lynne Rienner). He lives in Geneva.

The US Shifts From Progressive to Authoritarian Neoliberalism

Catherine Rottenberg

February 7, 2025

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

“Shock and Awe,” “Fear and Chaos,” “Carnage”—these are just some of the more typical ways mainstream media have described the mood after Donald Trump’s first few weeks in office. From the latest announcements about removing Palestinians from Gaza and the draconian crackdown on immigrants through pulling the US out of the World Health Organization and freezing USAID and tariffs on trading partners, to declaring that the United States recognizes male and female as the only two genders, these executive orders and declaration impact a dizzying array of seemingly disparate issues.

What is clear is that we are witnessing a notable shift in relations of power in the US: from an era in which “progressive” neoliberalism characterized by deregulation, privatization, and financialized capitalism merged with progressive social agendas, such as diversity, equality and inclusion policies to an authoritarian and even fascist iteration of neoliberalism. This new formation deepens neoliberal policies but simultaneously replaces any progressive veneer with policies that single out and oppress marginalized groups. It also reverses any attempt to prevent climate breakdown, concentrating power in the hands of the executive and a few billionaire elites.

How did we get here?

Commentators have rightly pointed to the failures of the Democratic Party, which for decades has become ever more beholden to big money, abandoning not just the poor and working class along the way but increasingly sections of the middle-class.  For many voters, moreover, the Biden Administration’s complicity in and support for the genocide in Gaza crystallized the moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, leading to the uncommitted movement, and millions of voters simply staying home on election day.

There is also no doubt that Trump’s return to the Oval Office is about his success in weaponizing the visceral fear, anxiety, anger and resentment of ever-growing groups who feel abandoned by the state and have been increasingly living in precarity. Trump’s victory is due to his ability to frame these people’s grievances as if they overlap with the interests of world’s wealthiest people—the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

The common enemy, voters were told again and again, is the deep state, the swamp in DC and the entire corrupt political system. But while this rhetoric appealed to different groups, it also helped to obscure Trump’s real objectives: to further shrink the state through more deregulation, privatization, and decreasing taxes paid by the wealthy, while providing corporate welfare to all his big donors. Musk might have donated $200 million to the MAGA campaign, but Trump will now ensure that taxpayers’ money will be channelled back to Musk’s coffers multiplying his initial investment several fold. This accounts for Trump’s move to reassert aggressive neoliberal policies, such as rescinding restrictions on oil drilling in Alaska.

Yet, how do we account for millions of voters’ sharp rightward and indeed regressive turn on social issues, a shift that is exemplified by big tech’s current alignment with Trump? After all, Silicon Valley had been at the forefront of “progressive” neoliberalism—particularly on issues relating to gender equality and DEI initiatives.  Just think of the former COO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 feminist manifesto Lean In, which was a harbinger of a neoliberal feminism, encouraging women to lean in to their careers rather than opt-out of paid employment.

To further cement the bond among his disparate supporters, Trump and MAGA Republicans successfully untethered as well as fomented two powerful historical forces, white supremacy and misogyny. These have always been part of the US’ s cultural fabric but have been attenuated and curtailed by progressive movements and legislation over the past fifty years.

White supremacy and misogyny have helped to further solder the somewhat tenuous bond between the precarious, those who feel abandoned, and the obscenely wealthy. The strategy, in other words, has been to displace and redirect anger and anxiety toward age-old easy scapegoats: immigrants, black and brown people, queer and trans folk, and unruly women and their bodies.

These various strategies have worked extremely well. Trump and his supporters have attacked critical race studies and DEI and replaced them with discourses that have always served authoritarian and fascist governments, such as ethnic nationalism and gender traditionalism.  To be sure, this trend is not new and did not begin with Trump, but these processes have now been given unbridled license under his leadership.

The attack on progressive forces can be seen, for instance, in the mainstreaming of a network of women who call themselves traditional housewives, or “tradwives” for short. Posting on social media, these women present themselves as having been liberated from the corporate rat race. They actively promote a lifestyle that takes pleasure in traditional domestic duties, feminine submissiveness, and wifehood.

The tradwife phenomenon was peripheral just a few years ago. Today, it boasts an array of influencers who have garnered significant media attention. Mainstream media outlets now cover their stories, highlighting these women’s embrace of gender traditionalism and their declarations of liberation from the straightjacket of neoliberal feminism’s ideal of a happy work-family balance.

The horrific irony is that gender traditionalism and ethnic nationalism are coming to stand in for freedom. Tradwives insist on “the joy and freedom that comes from submitting to their husbands” and see themselves as symbolising the ability to throw off the shackles of state regulation and societal restrictions.

It is precisely this convergence of forces—the Democratic Party’s moral and political bankruptcy, the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism and financialisation, the rise of big tech’s influence, and the resurgence and strategic mobilisation of misogynist and ethnic-nationalist rhetoric—that has propelled this shift to an authoritarian-fascist iteration of neoliberalism.

Where do we go from here?

One key lesson from the 2024 elections is that for many US voters—even those who are not die-hard MAGA supporters—upending the unbearable status quo has become paramount, trumping whatever concerns some may have about the unabashed racism and misogyny of the MAGA movement. Many are likely gleeful at the wrecking ball strategy of Trump’s first days in power.

Going forward, the left will have to address people’s desire to destroy the status quo, but also their yearning for a different form of governance, one not created in the image of the corporation.

Another important lesson involves the centrality of tapping into people’s emotions. Addressing the material conditions that have produced precarity and mass grievance may well not be enough. The left will also need to untangle voters’ affective attachments and what they signify so that they can cultivate these powerful forces and reorient them.

Only by learning hard lessons—and before it is too late–will a progressive left bloc be able to regroup and convince US voters to join them in their struggle for a more just and sustainable future.

Catherine Rottenberg, a professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, is co-author of The Care Manifesto (Verso, 2020) as well as author of The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism (Oxford UP, 2018).

 

Bet You Never Thought You’d Miss the Rules-Based Order

by Ted Snider Posted onFebruary 06, 2025

Once upon a time, there was something called international law. It was a set of codified laws that had the United Nations as its firm foundation and that applied universally and impartially to all nations. Then, at some point, international law was replaced by the rules-based order. Based not on impartiality with the UN as its foundation, the rules-based order is based on selective application with the U.S. and American exceptionalism as its foundation. Protected behind a façade of universality, the U.S. applies the rules when it suites them and exempts itself from the rules when it does not. In a single act that Richard Sakwa has called the “great substitution,” the American hegemon usurped the power of the Security Council and replaced the codified international laws with the unwritten rules-based order.

But still in those days, the U.S. wore the mask of international law. They recognized that they were at their most powerful when it looked like the UN and the international community were behind them. Wars were dressed up as humanitarian interventions and coups were disguised as democracy. But U.S. President Donald Trump has thrown aside the disguise and exposed America’s nature. Trump has sped passed the signposts of international law without a wave. It took President William McKinley fifty days to smash the sovereignty of the first five nations America betrayed; it has taken Trump only fifteen to threaten four.

In his February 4th press conference, Trump announced that “[t]he US will take over the Gaza strip and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and… level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”

“Never mind that he could name no legal authority that would permit the United States to unilaterally assert control over someone else’s territory,” The New York Times said, “or that the forcible removal of an entire population would be a violation of international law.” The president who promised only days ago that his legacy would be “a peacemaker” whose success would be measured by “the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into” sped past international law so fast he left himself behind.

Trump’s plan “to resettle people permanently” might not only involve sending US troops “[i]f it’s necessary,” it could set off a devastating region wide war. And, though Trump says “[t]his was not a decision I made lightly,” it is a decision that shoots in the foot his dreamt of lifetime legacy of extending the Abraham accords to Saudi Arabia, who, once again, in “a clear and explicit manner,” said it would not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without a Palestinian state. American real estate property does not legally constitute a Palestinian state.

Trump’s remarks were only his most recent remarks threatening another people’s sovereignty. Trump has threatened to use “economic force” to “get rid of that artificially drawn line” between Canada and the United States. “What I’d like to see,” Trump said, “is Canada become our 51st state.”

Despite Trump’s case against Canada and his claim that “[t]he fentanyl coming through Canada is massive” and that Canada and Mexico, “Canada very much so,” have “allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country that shouldn’t be here,” Canada accounts for only 0.2% of the fentanyl that enters the U.S. and only 6.9% of the migrants.

And, despite Trump’s claim that “[m]any Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State,” the most recent polling shows that 90% of Canadians oppose joining the United States.

Going beyond even his statements on Canada, Trump has refused to rule out taking Greenland militarily. When asked if he would rule out military force, Trump refused, saying, “I’m not going to commit to that. It might be that you’ll have to do something… We need Greenland for national security purposes.” Trump has called acquiring Greenland “an absolute necessity.” Making military threats against Denmark is nothing less than an unprecedented military threat against a NATO ally.

And Trump has made military threats against the sovereignty of Panama too. When asked if he would rule out using the U.S. military to seize control of the Panama Canal, Trump said, “I’m not going to commit to that. It might be that you’ll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country.”

America has gone to war with Panama before when that country had done nothing to threaten it. America has gone to war before to steal another country’s resources. And America has bared its neocolonial teeth before. But in laying it bare and honestly exposing its disrespect for sovereignty and for international law the way Trump is, America risks losing not only its hegemony in the world but the world.

Who would make a deal with the US after Trump illegally broke the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran? Who would commit to taking on the U.S. as its largest trade partner when Trump declared economic war on Canada, its closet friend and trade partner? And who would commit to security arrangements with the U.S. when Trump threatens Denmark, a close NATO ally, militarily?

As the American hegemon turns even on its allies and leaves international law, and even the rules-based order, behind, it risks trading its leadership in the world for being alone in the world.

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.

 THE RULE OF (BURGEOIS) LAW

Tariffs and the Constitution

by Andrew P. Napolitano Posted onFebruary 07, 2025

The taxing power in the federal government resides in the Congress. The Constitution states that Congress has the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts” of the federal government. Indeed, in order to emphasize the location of this power in the Congress, the Constitution also requires that all legislation “for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”

So, if only Congress can impose taxes, how can the president impose tariffs?

Here is the backstory.

However one characterizes a tariff, since it consists of the compulsory payment of money to the federal government, it is a form of taxation. It is – to use James Madison’s language – a duty or an impost. The federal government survived on duties and imposts – some of which were imposed on the states – from the time of its creation in 1789 until the War Between the States. Even under Abraham Lincoln, when unconstitutional income taxes were imposed, they were done by legislation, not executive fiat.

Then came Franklin D. Roosevelt and a congressional ban on the exportation of armaments to be implemented at the president’s discretion. This sounds fairly benign, yet it fomented the supercharged presidency that we have today. When Congress banned the sale of American arms to foreign countries, it did so by giving FDR the power to decide what to ban and upon which countries to impose the ban. Then it did the unthinkable: It made a violation of the president’s fiats a federal crime.

I call this unthinkable because under the Constitution’s Due Process Clause jurisprudence, at the federal level only Congress can make behavior criminal.

In defiance of FDR’s ban, Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation, an American manufacturer of military hardware, sold armaments to the government of Bolivia, and the Department of Justice persuaded a federal grand jury to indict the corporation. Then a federal judge dismissed the indictment on the constitutional basis that only Congress can decide what behavior is criminal and it cannot give that power to the president.

The trial court merely enforced the well-known and universally accepted non-delegation doctrine. It stands for the principle that the three branches of government cannot delegate away any of their core powers. Among Congress’ core powers is writing laws and deciding what behavior is criminal. By giving away this power to the president, the trial court ruled, Congress violated the non-delegation principle, and thus FDR’s determination that arms sales to Bolivia was criminal was itself a nullity.

The government appealed directly to the Supreme Court. Had the court simply reversed the trial judge and sent the case back to him for trial, we might never have heard of this case or the policy it established.

Yet, instead of a simple reversal, the Court issued a treatise on presidential power. Using truly novel rationale written by Justice George Sutherland, the court held that, even though the power to establish foreign policy is not expressly given to the president, that power – are you ready for this? – traveled across the Atlantic in 1789 from King George III to President George Washington and was permanently reposed in the presidency.

It doesn’t stop there.

In furtherance of his pursuit of foreign policy, the president need not consult the Congress and need not require legislation. Stated differently, because the president, Justice Sutherland wrote, is the sole keeper of the country’s foreign policy, he requires tools in order to do so, and among the tools available to him to effectuate that policy is the power to make behavior that defies his foreign policy a crime; also among those tools is the power to tax in furtherance of his foreign policy.

This logic appears nowhere in the Constitution. Justice Sutherland, who was born in Great Britain, analogized American presidential power in foreign relations to that of British monarchs in the era before parliamentary supremacy. And this utter nonsense is still the law today!

Now back to tariffs.

Regrettably, the Curtiss-Wright case – though wrongly decided and absurdly reasoned – is still good law today, and presidents from FDR to Donald Trump have relied upon its authority for their unilateral decisions on American foreign policy. I call this regrettable because it constitutes a pronounced transfer of power from Congress to the president, in defiance of the Constitution.

FDR gave us the welfare state. Perhaps Donald Trump will undo it.

But all this happens at the price of constitutional norms. Before Curtiss-Wright – and even since – the Supreme Court ruled that all federal power comes from the Constitution and from no other source. That’s because James Madison and his colleagues created a central government of limited powers – limited by and articulated in the Constitution.

But Curtiss-Wright says some federal power comes from Great Britain! So, where does this leave us?

The Congress is not a general legislature like the British Parliament, and the president is not a monarch. To argue that powers come from some source other than the Constitution is anti-constitutional. And in this case, to claim with a straight face that George III’s powers were reposed into the American presidency is an absurdity that would have been rejected summarily and unambiguously by the Framers.

History and politics often change the rules. Until 110 years ago, with the exception of Lincoln’s presidency, the federal government operated under the Madisonian model: The federal government can only do that which is expressly authorized by the Constitution.

From and after the dreadful Progressive Era, the Wilsonian model has prevailed – the federal government can address any national problem for which there is a political will, subject only to that which is expressly prohibited by the Constitution. Add to the Wilsonian model the nonsense from Curtiss-Wright, and you have a presidency that can tax any foreign event and create a domestic crime.

Even George III lacked such powers.

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the US Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

COPYRIGHT 2021 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO – DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

 

Heads Up, the Revolution is Already Here

It’s Revolution or Death, Part 2

by subMedia / February 8th, 2025

State and market solutions to the ecological crisis have only increased the wealth and power of those on top, while greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Nearly all the experts and professionals are invested, literally, in a framework that is only making things worse. With so much power concentrated in the very institutions that suppress any realistic assessment of the situation, things seem incredibly bleak. But what if we told you that there’s another way? That there are already people all around the world implementing immediate, effective responses that can be integrated into long-term strategies to survive these overlapping, cascading crises?

We spoke with three revolutionaries on the front lines resisting capitalist, colonial projects. Sleydo’ from the Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation, in so-called British Columbia, Isa from the ZAD in the west of France, and Neto, a militant with the Landless Workers’ Movement based in the northeast of so-called Brazil. They share their experiences gained from years of building collective power, defeating repression, and defending the Earth for all its inhabitants and for the generations still to come.

They share stories of solidarity spreading across a continent, of people abandoned to poverty and marginalization reclaiming land, restoring devastated forests, and feeding themselves communally, stories of strangers coming together for their shared survival and a better future, going head to head with militarized police forces and winning. And in these stories we can hear things that are lacking almost everywhere else we look: optimism alongside realism, intelligent strategies for how we can survive, love and empathy for the world around us and for the future generations, together with the belief that we can do something meaningful, something that makes a difference. The joy of revolutionary transformation.

We learn about solutions. Real world solutions. Solutions outside of the control of capitalism and the state.

The Revolution is Already Here.

Next up: how do we make it our own?

Revolution or Death is a three-part collaboration between Peter Gelderloos and subMedia. Part 1, ‘Short Term Investments,’ examined the official response to the climate crisis and how it’s failing. In Part 2, ‘Heads Up, the Revolution is Already Here’ we talk with movements around the globe that provide inspiring examples of what realistic, effective responses look like. Part 3 ‘Reclaiming the World Wherever We Stand’ will focus on how we can all apply these lessons at home.Facebook

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SubMedia is directed and produced by Frank Lopez. Read other articles by subMedia, or visit subMedia's website.