Forces against internationalism
On January 9, Ambassador Karen Pierce, the United Kingdom's permanent representative to the United Nations, spoke at a meeting on the UN Charter. "Nobody could accuse the founding members of a lack of ambition when they drafted the Charter," Ambassador Pierce said. "But at times, the United Nations has often suffered from an almost unbridgeable gap between the power of its central vision and the actual actions it has been able to carry out."
Ambassador Pierce said she did not just mean that the United Nations' agencies had failed, but that the member states had failed as well. The 1945 charter, she said, "makes very clear the emphasis on states to cooperate, to harmonize actions to attain common ends."
Ambassador Kelly Craft, the US ambassador to the UN, spoke at the same meeting. She praised the charter and called upon the member states of the UN to bring its values into the world. However, Ambassador Craft said, "On far too many occasions, we have seen nations that are parties to the Charter suppress human rights, undermine the sovereignty of their neighbors, harm their own citizens, and even deny the right of other nations to exist."
These are powerful words from Ambassadors Pierce and Craft, but they are hollow. They mean nothing. Over the past few decades, Western countries such as the United Kingdom, but more so the United States of America, have flouted international laws and failed even to try to uphold the high-minded principles of the charter.
Most recently, the United States has attempted to muzzle the International Criminal Court (ICC) as it has pursued a perfectly reasonable investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan; and the United Kingdom has denied Venezuela its sovereign right to gold held in the Bank of England.
In both cases, the United States and the UK have undermined the sovereignty of nations and mutilated international law. The lawlessness of the governments of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Donald Trump are better explored through their actual practices than through the high-minded speeches of their ambassadors to the United Nations.
Suffocation of the ICC In March, the International Criminal Court gave permission to ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to proceed with an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan (committed by all sides, including the United States). The US government was furious.
In June, Trump issued Executive Order 13928 on "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated with the International Criminal Court." US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Attorney General William Barr announced that the government would target ICC officials involved in the inquiry. Visas for the United States would be denied not only to these officials, but to their families as well.
The UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Diego García-Sayán (a former Peruvian minister), released a sharp statement defending the ICC. "The implementation of such policies by the US has the sole aim of exerting pressure on an institution whose role is to seek justice against crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression," he said.
The US attack on the ICC prosecutors was so aggressive that García-Sayán said it was a "further step in pressuring the ICC and coercing its officials in the context of independent and objective investigations and impartial judicial proceedings." In other words, the United States was using its power to suffocate the ICC.
Earlier, in May, Pompeo condemned the ICC, saying it was a "political body, not a judicial institution." That was in light of the ICC move to investigate Israel for its violations of international law regarding the occupation of the Palestinians. If the ICC proceeded with any such investigation, Pompeo said, the United States would "exact consequences." This is gangland talk.
Suffocation of Venezuela
The Central Bank of Venezuela has $1.8 billion in gold in the Bank of England. This money is owned by the government of Venezuela; this is not contested by anyone. But when Venezuela sought access to its gold, the Bank of England refused to honor the request.
In May, the government of Nicolás Maduro took the Bank of England to court, asking the British judicial system to honor the contract it made with the Central Bank of Venezuela.