The ICC's issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza has stirred up a considerable backlash. But, in fact, the world's major military powers have long shown disdain for the international organization, for it has the potential to investigate, prosecute, and convict their own government officials.
The time has come to transform the United Nations into a federation of nations that can effectively uphold international law -- a government for the world. With such a government, we would have a much better chance of restraining outlaw nations and averting the nuclear catastrophe that looms before us.
As I contemplate the current political struggle over the future of the United States, I wonder about the apparent views of many of my fellow Americans. Do they really favor the extremist policies of Donald Trump -- the latest in a long string of rightwing demagogues?
Have human institutions evolved sufficiently to cope with the modern world? When it comes to national security, the answer appears to be: No. Recently, however, there have been efforts to reform the Unied Nations that, combined with the work of civil society organizations and far-sighted government officials, might produce a new and more peaceful relationship among nations.
The Trump-Vance defamatory and baseless attacks on immigrants are nothing new in U.S. or world history. Immigrant-bashing is a deeply rooted political strategy of the economically and socially privileged and their parties on the Right to undermine popular pressure for greater economic and social equality. As many a demagogue or unscrupulous politician has learned, fear or hatred of the "other" can be effective in stirring up a mob or winning an election.
Why does war's widespread destruction and human suffering persist in the modern, ostensibly "civilized," world? Although many explanations have been advanced, one of the most powerful is global anarchy. With this in mind, a number of prominent individuals over the past century have sought an effective remedy in strengthened global governance: Albert Einstein called for world government, Norman Cousins proposed world federation, and Benjamin Ferencz championed the development and enforcement of world law. And there have been indications that this approach can be effective.
Project 2025 -- a Heritage Foundation blueprint for a new GOP administration authorized by Trump and prepared by at least 140 people who had worked in his first administration -- proposes to ban public employee unions, empower the states to ban unions in the private sector, and give states the right to ignore federal minimum wage and maximum hour protections. In addition, it calls for eliminating child labor rules that protect children from working in mines, meatpacking plants, and other hazardous occupations. To help implement this draconic program and its other astonishing recommendations (for example, abolishing the Department of Education), Project 2025 advocates the firing of 50,000 federal government workers and replacing them with Trump loyalists.
During the Trump administration's four years in office, it weakened the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and rolled back critical U.S. health and safety regulations. As a result, in 2019 (the year before the advent of the deadly coronavirus pandemic), U.S. deaths on the job soared to 5,333 and an additional 95,000 American workers died elsewhere from occupational diseases. Furthermore, according to the AFL-CIO, American workers suffered between 7 million and 10.5 million injuries per year.
Although action by the United Nations has, at times, prevented or ended wars, reduced international conflict, and provided a forum for useful discussion of international issues by the world community, more effective global action against war could be secured by implementing a variety of measures. These include setting limits on the veto in the UN Security Council, increasing the number of nations accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, and securing wider ratification of the founding statute of the International Criminal Court.
The heightening danger of nuclear war owes a great deal to Donald Trump, who, as U.S. President, not only wrecked key nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements of the past and future, but launched his nation and others on an escalating nuclear arms race. Openly threatening nuclear war, Trump quickly revealed himself as remarkably willing to launch it, leaving top members of his administration aghast and scrambling to head off a nuclear Armageddon.