Overview

Since October 2023, the international community’s failure to prevent the massacre of Palestinian civilians – coupled with the complicity of many Western states – has exposed the collapse of international law in Gaza. Appointed in 2022 as the UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese has described the killings in Gaza as genocide, placing her at the center of an unprecedented media and political storm. Following her lead, the UN has condemned what it calls ongoing ethnic cleansing. But 80 years after its founding – a legacy of World War II and the promise of “never again” what power does the United Nations still hold beyond its futile declarations? Can it still act as a fragile bulwark against political and humanitarian collapse, in the face of disunited Western nations and a failing global order?