‘UN’s Is At Lowest Point Since 1947,’ John Bolton Tells the Sun — Reflecting America’s Discontent With Global Institutions

Europeans are determined to fight off America’s increased disillusionment with international institutions, even as the star of the United Nations, its various arms and judicial venues — and even the Nobel committee — is fast dimming. As the clock is running out on Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ second term at the helm, the UN Security Council is unable to pick a replacement. The current seven candidates for the post are all UN insiders. None of them have secured sufficient support at the 15-member council. Washington is seeking someone — anyone — who might change direction at the declining institution. “The UN is at its lowest point since 1947, particularly the Security Council, and it’s hard to see how it recovers,” a former American UN ambassador and White House national security adviser, John Bolton, tells The New York Sun. He quotes one of his predecessors at Turtle Bay, the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, who was asked once if America should withdraw from the UN. “She paused for a moment, and then answered, ‘no, it’s not worth the trouble,’” he says. Europeans, meanwhile, are eager to revive the grand idea of inter-governmental cooperation — but are struggling to rehabilitate even their own Union. This week’s EU summit at Brussels is expected to deal with economic competitiveness, defense readiness, energy prices, and migration — issues that the union has long struggled to resolve by consensus.At London, Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s hints on a possible Brexit reversal. Announcing a gathering of British and EU officials next month, Mr. Burnham called on Parliament to support tightening relations with Brussels. Rejoining the EU is “lazy thinking from somebody who has run out of ideas and wants to refight the battles of the past,” the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, told the Telegraph. Mr. Burnham said on Monday that Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps “highly likely” directed a suspected attack attempt on the Fairfold Royal Air Force base in southwest England. Britain then led a list of 30 countries, including America, in issuing a scathing joint statement that condemned Tehran “in the strongest terms.” These countries, though, widely differ on ways to confront the Iranian menace. It is “fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the ‘global community’ over one’s own people,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a speech last week in Greece. Many are “transferring our decisions to global bureaucracies far beyond the reach of our control.” One point of consensus in those global bureaucracies is aversion to Israel. While America is pushing back, France, Britain, and other European countries are following global institutions, with sanctions on Israel. “Beginning in the 1970s, you could pretty much launder anything against Israel in the UN General Assembly, and the thing is, most people don’t know that the UN General Assembly is based on one lousy country, one vote,” which guarantees an anti-Israel majority, an author and candidate in Israel’s upcoming Knesset election, Einat Wilf, tells the Sun.A Nobel to a GlobalistA Norwegian committee awarded the Nobel Peace prize last week to a long-time activist in UN institutions, South Africa’s Navi Pillay. In a victory lap this week, Ms. Pillay stopped at Hague on Monday to celebrate with members of the International Criminal Court, where she once served as a judge. The fresh Nobelist commended the court’s “compassion and courage continue to ensure that impunity will not be allowed to reign.”The 85-year-old Ms. Pillay’ life following her fight against apartheid in her country was dedicated to an endless assault on Israel. Last year she quit as head of a Human Rights Council committee that uniquely investigates alleged Israeli crimes. “The last thing I did is the report on Gaza naming what is happening there as genocide,” the newly-minted Nobelist proudly said this week. By awarding Ms. Pillay their prize, the five-member committee at Oslo signaled that Israel deserves more global attention than the war in Sudan, deaths in Yemen, or hangings in Iran. By overlooking a strong Nobel candidate, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the Norwegians turned a blind eye to a lethal war in their own backyard that could threaten their entire continent. America’s Pushback on the ICCThe criminal court at Hague, which has been erected to adjudicate war crimes and crimes against humanity, has long been accused by its own members of concentrating on cases against African leaders. That all changed once the court’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan, issued a call to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayhu.Mr. Khan has since been dismissed on allegations of sexual assaults, but the ICC judges are widely applauded for approving his assault on Israel. Washington, though, notes that the court at Hague has no jurisdiction over its non-members, which include Israel, America, Communist China, and Russia, to name a few. “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week. America’s new ICC sanctions are “totally unfair,” Ms. Pillay said Monday. While many interpreted last week’s sanctions as retaliation against the Nobel committee’s choice, they also reflect America’s frustrations with excesses of internationalist bodies.The ICC was created by an international treaty known as the Rome Statute. One principle the 1998 treaty stressed is “complementarity”: National courts have the primary right and duty to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes, while the ICC would only step in when a legal system is unable or unwilling to do so. Additionally, countries that didn’t ratify the Rome Statute would be outside of the ICC’s jurisdiction. Nevertheless, an open case against American soldiers in Afghanistan is still on the ICC’s docket. Mr. Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant are subject to international arrests. The globalist mind’s attack on Israel is far from new, but it has intensified since the October 7, 2023, assault in the Jewish state. It is fed by — and also instigates — large “anti-Zionist” protests around the world. “Institutions of authority and prestige are important to paralyze judgment,” Ms. Wilf says. “We say to ourselves, ‘Ah, the UN said so, ah, they gave her a Nobel Prize, ah, a Harvard PhD said so.” And that is enough to “paralyze the faculties of judgment.”

‘UN’s Is At Lowest Point Since 1947,’ John Bolton Tells the Sun — Reflecting America’s Discontent With Global Institutions

‘UN’s Is At Lowest Point Since 1947,’ John Bolton Tells the Sun — Reflecting America’s Discontent With Global Institutions

More from the New York Sun

Zelensky Credits Ukrainian Attacks on Data Centers With Reducing Bots on Social Media

GOP Lawmakers Revolt Over Plan to Livestream Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution

Mahmoud Abbas’s ‘Crime Against Democracy’

Anger as Mamdani Snubs Italian Americans on Columbus Day

Mamdani’s New Cop Crackdown Will See Exodus From NYPD, Police Unions Warn

New Federal Rule Shrinks Airline Compensation Requirements Starting Next Week

Has the French Left Found a New Challenger to Marine Le Pen?

Grassley Aims To Stay in Office Until Age 101 — and Could Haunt Jack Smith to His Final Days

More from the New York Sun

Zelensky Credits Ukrainian Attacks on Data Centers With Reducing Bots on Social Media

GOP Lawmakers Revolt Over Plan to Livestream Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution

Mahmoud Abbas’s ‘Crime Against Democracy’

Anger as Mamdani Snubs Italian Americans on Columbus Day

Mamdani’s New Cop Crackdown Will See Exodus From NYPD, Police Unions Warn

New Federal Rule Shrinks Airline Compensation Requirements Starting Next Week

Has the French Left Found a New Challenger to Marine Le Pen?

Grassley Aims To Stay in Office Until Age 101 — and Could Haunt Jack Smith to His Final Days