United Nations

The Quest for Humane Survival Richard Falk Professor emeritus, Princeton UniversityTFF Associate since 1986October 12, 2026 After decades of teaching and writing about international law in academic frameworks that were not institutionally situated within law school environments—at Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara—I found myself most receptive to the TWAIL outlook. It has been especially illuminating in clarifying the extent to which international law evolved as a dialogical critique of Europe’s efforts to legitimize its colonial undertakings. In particular, TWAIL has exposed how international law has functioned to legalize the subjugation of Third World peoples, securing conditions for exploitative investment and trade relations, the coercive enforcement of public debts, and an ideology of cultural superiority. TWAIL’s exposure of these economic legacies of colonialism has influenced my understanding of the history and development of international law, broadly conceived, as an ideological project of the Western sub-system of the world...

It’s a matter of principles, courage, vision and pulling together – while the militarist world is falling apart… Peter Langille October 3, 2026 “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”The Bertrand Russell—Albert Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955 ⁕ The forecast for what’s ahead is worrisome. The sharp rise in armed conflicts over the past three years is adding to what was already the highest level in over seventy years. Genocides, which should be prevented are supported. A shared climate emergency that jeopardises survival is ignored. Diverse polls now suggest that people are war-weary, worried and interested in a more effective United Nations. And, there are viable policy options for a more secure world! Yet governments are doubling-down, betting on more war and investing heavily. If current trends persist,...

PART 2 — Diplomacy, Law and Nonviolent Power By Jan ObergTFF co-founder and director January 26, 2026 This is the second of four TFF-created idea portfolios designed to curb the global reach of the United States and, in both the short and long term, help catalyse a worldwide nonviolent resistance to what many observers describe as the Trump administration’s uniquely confrontational, destructive and world-threatening policies. These portfolios outline what governments and citizens across the world can do through dynamic diplomacy, creative initiatives, and strictly nonviolent means. They are typical TFF works in that we do not only tell what the problem is and how bad it will go – as 90+% of all commentators, experts and scholars do – we tell what we think can be done, inviting you to think of what you think you can do. It seems painfully clear to me that the current political dynamics in Washington increasingly resemble the most dangerous...

“The Peace Throne Is Empty and the UN Cancelled” • Illustration AI-generated by Jan Oberg The fact that the outlandish and quackish Trump “peace” plan for the genocided Gaza was passed by the UN Security Council defines the end of every understanding of true peace. Jan Oberg November 18, 2025 The UN Security Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution on November 17, 2025, endorsing Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. It authorised an International Stabilisation Force (ISF), backed a transitional governing body called the “Board of Peace”, and declared that conditions may now exist for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and eventual statehood. The vote passed 13–0, with Russia and China abstaining. This is UN SC Resolution 2803. This goes against everything the UN stands for. Of course, China and Russia wisely abstained. They want no involvement and co-responsibility with this fake peace plan and are smart enough to see that...

PRESS RELEASE – 6 OCTOBER 2025 LAY DOWN YOUR ARMSPEACE PRIZE FOR 2025 is awarded Francesca Albanese The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories – as the person who, in accordance with Alfred Nobel’s will, has “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations and for the abolition or reduction of standing armies as well as for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Francesca Albanese has forcefully and unwaveringly worked against Israel’s full-scale war on the occupied Palestinian territories, in particular Israel´s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. She has confronted Israel’s systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity in a truly global outreach. Further, she has brought governments, international organisations and people’s groups together to underline the responsibility of the world at large to act and to stop arming, enabling, and profiting from Israel’s ongoing criminal actions. But first of all, Albanese...

This is the third appeal from TFF. The first and the second here. On August 22, 2025, the UN officially declared famine in Gaza. The world’s top authority on food security called for help and said starvation will spread further within the Strip unless fighting stops and much more aid is allowed in. More than half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic hunger conditions, while more than a million more are in a food emergency phase, the report states. This man-made catastrophic famine could have been prevented by a steady flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave, relief chief Tom Fletcher pointed out. “Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel,” Mr. Fletcher said. “It is a famine within a few 100 meters of food in a fertile land.” The UN’s top aid official underscored that the famine in Gaza is “caused by cruelty, justified...

Contrary to what we stated when publishing this Call, the UN General Assembly (GA) opened on September 9, 2025, in New York, not in Geneva, as we initially wrote. However, due to the host role-violating US ban on visas to Palestinians, the Special GA Segment on Palestine will be held in the UN Geneva from September 22. And it builds up to something historic. Anyhow, here is what we believe you must advocate or do to help stop the Israeli genocide. It’s called people’s power or citizens’ diplomacy. SHARE! The first of three appeals from TFF. The second is here, and the third here. Across the world, people are witnessing the systematic destruction of Palestinian lives, homes, and communities. The scale and intensity of Israel’s military operations — especially in Gaza — have led leading legal bodies, including the International Court of Justice, to warn of a plausible genocide. The...

Editorial for Transcend Media Service, TMS, and published in an edited Q & A version by the China Social Science Network-China Social Science News. See also this follow-up, “Condemn all UN member states: They spend 100 times more on militarism than on the entire UN system.” The UN has been extremely important over the last 80 years in terms of, for instance, global dialogue, multi-dimensional development, international law, peace-keeping, normativity, violence condemnation, and ethics. It has been the place to hold member states accountable. The UN Charter is the most Gandhian document ever signed by the world’s governments. If the great majority of member states lived up to their obligations in accordance with the UN Charter and including the resolutions they have signed up to, the world would be a much more peaceful, just, democratic, and lawful place. Regrettably, there are several reasons why the world is not in accordance with those fine Charter norms and provisions:a) The majority...

Professor Zhang Weiwei is a highly respected Chinese intellectual and professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. He is the director of its China Institute and also runs a series of conversations with many different people around the world. Here is what came out of their meetings there and in Skopje, Macedonia in October 2024: & As you can see, also at the end of the second one, we both enjoy win-win exchanges like these about world order issues. Zhang Weiwei is known for using videos and social media to reach a large audience in China and worldwide. We suggest you see many more of Zhang Weiwei’s conversations – like recently with Professor Jeffrey Sachs – on the Thinkers’ Forum on YouTube. PSTFF posts hundreds of videos, its own and those of others, in our Video Collections on TFF Substack – including those that appear on YouTube. However, TFF has been cancelled by Google-owned...

The text below was published in “The Nation” on July 15, 2025, appears here unmodified. The delay is due to a weak Internet here in Turkey. There has been much critical reaction to this US Government defamatory statement justifying the imposition of sanctions on this exceptional independent expert appointed by the UN to an unpaid position, and left to hang in the wind by the politically motivated show of indifference by the UN Secretariat.] Justifying US Sanctions US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in a dazzling Orwellian display inverted reality by slapping sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the much-embattled UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories of East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza. If the sanctions are implemented against this extraordinary citizen of Italy, in the face of strong UN objections, Albanese will be barred from entering the US, presumably even to discharge her annual UN duty to present a...

Jan Oberg June 19, 2025 Does she think we are idiots? Does Denmark’s foreign policy establishment? I am a Danish citizen, and this fraudulent speech with a gross lie through omission is morally and politically unacceptable. H. E. Ambassador, Christina Markus Lassen, spoke at the UN Security Council’s urgent meeting caused by Israel’s attack on Iran. Read her short – shocking – speech here. She is an experienced Danish diplomat, partly educated in the US (of course), and has been her country’s ambassador to Syria, where she collaborated with the US (the famous Mr Ford!), France, and the UK to shape a “Western approach” – to changing the government of Bashar al-Assad, one must assume. Perversely as hard to believe, she does not mention that Israel has attacked Iran! No, she starts with the US/Israeli mantra – they are both major nuclear powers, of course – that Iran shall never...

War-preparation and militarism are now the main factors that keep the West together, and will make it fall faster. The Western world has lost its consciousness, perception, and instruments of conflict analysis, resolution, peace-making, and reconciliation. They’ve been squeezed out by militarism’s kakistocrats – a political science term that means government by “the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous people.” Consequently, there is now a risk of more than 50% that a major war will happen in Europe. I’ve been observing silently for weeks and months now how geopolitical experts – also very qualified ones – and people who comment independently as well as in the mainstream media and many others have worked on the tacit, implicit assumption that President Trump would help create peace in Ukraine; they seem to believe that what we have witnessed has anything to do with knowledge-based, professional peace-making or would have even the slightest...