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- [00:08]
Imogen Folks
This is inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen folks, and this is a production from Swiss Info, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program, Khan Younis in southern.
- [00:27]
Nick Cumming-Bruce
Gaza, a wave of Russian missile strikes on cities across Ukraine.
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Dorian Burkhalter
Wars everywhere, climate change, deepening inequalities. AI it's just threats everywhere. But it seems like just the more global our problems are becoming, the weaker the UN Is also becoming. Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled quickly.
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Dawn Clancy
Pulling out of Paris agreement or the WHO threatening to cut funding. The US Is the biggest funder of the UN Billions of dollars. So it's just going to be chaos and no leadership. The FOX News decision desk can now.
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Dorian Burkhalter
Officially project that Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
It's hard to top the U.S. election because it already, you know, here we are two weeks later and it's already dominating pretty much the conversation on everything else that we've covered in 2024. Israel and its biggest ally, the United States, again isolated, furiously attacking the International Criminal Court's decision to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
- [01:46]
Imogen Folks
The world is changing while I'm watching, in terms of our fundamental principles. The world is changing while I'm watching. And for a while, I didn't quite even notice it. Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. And it being December, it's time for our look back at the year. That was 2024, and we know it hasn't been exactly fantastic. But don't switch off, keep listening because we've got UN Correspondents in Geneva and in New York to provide some analysis, reflection, and if we dare, a look ahead to what 2025 might have in store, a warm welcome to you all. We have here Dorian Burkhalter, Geneva UN Correspondent with SwissInfo. We have over in New York, Dawn Clancy, who covers the United nations and its political arm over in the Big Apple. And back here in Geneva, we have Nick Cumming, Bruce, contributor to the New York Times on all things UN Geneva, I'm going to start with it could be quite a difficult question, but I would like you to try and get into it. Is there a moment or an event in 2024 that particularly stood out for you? I know there have been many, but, Dorian, I'm going to come to you first with that question.
- [03:25]
Dorian Burkhalter
If I had to pick just one, I think it would be the US Election, Donald Trump being elected for a second mandate, because otherwise I was thinking about our discussion from last year. And I mean, there's still a war in Ukraine, there's still a war in the Middle east, in Sudan. And I think some of the things we're seeing, you know, that humanitarians are under attack, civilians too, that we need more access, international law is being violated. These things haven't changed.
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Imogen Folks
Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think none of us are going to disagree that that first week of November was quite momentous. Dawn, what about you over in New York?
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Dawn Clancy
Well, to get a bit more specific, it has to do with the Israeli ambassador, former Israeli ambassador to the un Gilad Erdan. He's now left that post. And it's Danny Dannon who's taken his post as the Israeli ambassador to the un. But back to Ambassador Adan. He was giving a speech in the General assembly and he brought with him a mini shredder and he began to shred pages of the UN Charter. And of course, he was saying a lot of things around that about how horrible the UN is and it's just, you know, full of anti Semitism rot. But to me, that moment, I just thought, wow, here's a member state. I mean, there's a lot worse happening in the world, but here's a member state standing in front of, you know, the General assembly and he's actually shredding pages of the charter. And yeah, I thought that pretty much sums up, sums up the year.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Nick, it's hard to top the U.S. election because it already, you know, here we are two weeks later, and it's already dominating pretty much the conversation on everything else that we've covered in 2024. But I suppose if one looks back before that, from the work that we have done in Geneva, I can't find a single incident like Dawn's that graphically illustrates the kind of coverage. But it would have to be something to do with Gaza because of the absolutely relentless flow of just appalling developments that have occurred since October 7th and the sense in which everything just continues to get worse. You don't think it can, but it continues to do. So.
- [05:55]
Imogen Folks
Yeah, I do want to come onto the US Presidential election a little bit later in the program. I think I want to join dawn and Nick in saying that it is the Middle east, not necessarily one particular event. And I know, of course, it started in October 2023 and as Dorian says, has been going on all of 2024. But my feeling, listening to people I've known for a decade or more who are aid workers who have been to Gaza and come back and watching them plead for humanity and listening to some of them weep and then talking to diplomats, particularly Western diplomats, who are just so uncomfortable with this topic. And that's when I just began to think, you know, actually, the world is changing while I'm watching, in terms of our fundamental principles. The world is changing while I'm watching. And for a while, I didn't quite even notice it. And I think, dawn, your image of an ambassador shredding the UN Charter in the General assembly is the absolute perfect image for that. Which brings me to my next question. Where are we with the un? Is it dead? Is it relevant?
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Dawn Clancy
It's interesting because this question is asked, has been asked repeatedly, especially when the war in Ukraine started, because the Security Council was so deadlocked in being able to pass resolution, obviously, because P5 members have a veto, Russia has a veto. So, you know, all of the coverage of the UN was basically, is the UN still relevant? You know, is it going to crumble and fall into the East River? And whenever this question comes up in the noon briefing at New York, the spokesperson for the Secretary General, Steph Dujarik, he always says, if you're going to ask me a question about the un, you're going to have to get split about which UN you mean. So if we're talking about the Security Council, I would say, yeah, they've got problems. If you're talking about like the secretariat and the administration, administrative end of it, sure. But I think, you know, speaking about humanitarian workers, you know, that being a part of the un, these people that go into these conflict zones and they just work so hard and they risk, risk their lives, that part of the un, I could say today is quite admirable. I think that's a plus for the un. But the political side is, yeah, it's like an earthquake at this point. And we don't really know how this is going to. Going to all settle down, so.
- [08:34]
Imogen Folks
But I would argue this is where I would like Dorian and Nick from the Geneva side to give me some thoughts on this. That where we've moved from this time last year when we talked is that the Security Council was deadlock then. We saw it, as you said, in Ukraine. But we've moved a step on where the fundamental principles of international law are being really blatantly defied. And now we see, for example, the suggestion, which is precedent setting, that a UN member state will deny a UN agency, unrwa, the right to work. And to me, that calls into question the relevance of the UN's humanitarian wing in Geneva as well, and whether it has a future.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Well, in a sense, the humanitarian side, as dawn said, is the one that has really been where you peg your hopes because the Security Council has been so paralyzed by geopolitical rivalries and it's unable to fulfill its main function, which is trying to help keep peace in the world. So you tend to look for the work of the WFP and the refugee agency human rights organization. You look at the Human Rights Council in Geneva as organizations which hold up some hope of humanity and where you think non political principles are still valued and elevated as something that we should strike for. The problem is that I think Volker Turk put it extremely well, you know, in October when he issued this statement saying, you know, the international rule of law is being progressively dismantled and he was speaking specifically about Gaza. But when the principles that are being trashed in the conflict in Gaza do not result in sanctions from leading Western democracies, and you have to say, double standards are replete. And we see the US position on Ukraine not being reflected in any way in its positions on Gaza. We see the US consistently failing to recognize how its continued flow of arms has essentially enabled the continuation of violations of international humanitarian law on an epic scale. So I think we're all at sea. And this is before the onset of a Trump administration which has appointed a number of people to key positions who have indicated that human rights, international human rights law and principles are absolutely of no significance.
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Imogen Folks
Dorian?
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Dorian Burkhalter
Yeah, I agree, you know, with the Security Council, of course, we know isn't working. So we're looking at humanitarian aid for, for things that are actually working. But I mean, humanitarians also depend on the decisions of governments. And I think whether it's funding, we see that it's always lacking for, I mean, most crises everywhere. And then access is being denied, humanitarian aid is being instrumentalized. I mean, this is also a very worrying trend. And even though this is not new, I think here the Israeli ban on UNRWA is quite unprecedented to have a parliament ban a UN agency like this. So it is worrying.
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Imogen Folks
I mean, I'm beginning to wonder if, I mean, we always talk New York, the Security Council, Geneva, the humanitarian agencies. But the humanitarian agencies are paying the price of the utter failure of the Security Council. I mean, we've got, of the P5, we now have one whose leader has been indicted for war crimes. That's Russia. We have another who is the subject of very, very concerning reports and allegations of crimes against humanity on its own territory. That's China. And now we have the United States, with the new administration returning, apparently very isolationist, not especially interested in international law. I suspect we'll come on to that in a minute. Could we drill a little deeper what the humanitarian side of the UN can actually do about this? No money, no real support and papering over these gaping wounds that failure of political will has created.
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Dawn Clancy
Before he left office, Martin Griffiths, he gave a briefing in New York, and you could tell that he was just so frustrated and so fed up with everything that was happening. And he said, you know, humanitarian agencies, they tend to stay away from the political. And he's like, I think it's time for humanitarian agencies to get political. And that really struck me because I thought, yeah, it's absolutely true. You know, you ask any humanitarian agency a question about something that's mildly political, and that's not my mandate. That's not my mandate. I can't talk about that. But, you know, I've thought about that even after, you know, he left his post, just what that would mean. And is that necessary? Is that the necessary next step for humanitarian agencies to start getting political and start taking, you know, a step towards that? I don't know.
- [14:04]
Imogen Folks
So, I mean, Martin Griffiths is the former head of emergency relief chief, the head of ocha, been replaced by Tom Fletcher now, who's also supposed to be a very strong character. I've heard from people who know him who described it as a very brave move on his part to even take that job because they think there's so little respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. But for Nick and Dorian, the idea of the humanitarian agencies becoming political is tricky, though, isn't it? Because they have this mantra of neutral, impartial, independent, which what we've seen in Geneva is actually, they've gone pretty quiet this year, particularly the International Committee, the Red Cross.
- [14:44]
Nick Cumming-Bruce
Yeah, I mean, it's difficult for them to get too political when they're dependent on government for funding. Part of the problem with the paralysis at the Security Council level in a multipolar world now is that multilateral solutions are less and less appealing to large numbers of states. Martin Griffith, also, before he left, said the multilateral system still works well, that the international aid community is much more efficient now than it used to be, that it does the job much better. But it's just the epic size of the humanitarian challenges that it's being asked to deal with are not being supported by donor states. And so what we see is that, I mean, more and more governments put money into things on a unilateral basis Ochas surf fund, the emergency fund is a good kind of barometer of that. And you see China gives half a million dollars derisory sums of money. The top five donors are all European. So the European aid givers remain, but the rest of the world is sort of scattering and doing its own thing.
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Imogen Folks
Dorian, I saw you nodding there.
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Dorian Burkhalter
No, exactly. That's actually also what I was going to say. I think, of course it is hard for humanitarian organizations to, to be more political and I think recently, but it's hard for me to tell whether that's new or not. But I feel like they are seeing things quite clearly when it comes, for example, with them being sort of instrumentalized, you know, when there's misinformation about them. But I think certainly they would need to encourage more governments to provide funding because in the end, if it's just the big Western countries, that does not make things easier for them.
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Imogen Folks
Since you talked about funding, let's hone in specifically on the U.S. presidential election and the appointments because the U.S. of course, is a massive donor at the moment to United Nations. Now, should we read the tea leaves a little bit? Donald Trump's appointments, look at the Middle east first. What do we think? I think this, I mean, I personally think his choice for ambassador to the United nations, his choice for ambassador to Israel looked like as far as the US Is concerned, any idea of a two state solution is over.
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Dawn Clancy
I completely agree with that. You know, you brought up his choice for ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik. She describes herself as ultra maga, make America Great Again, which I guess is Trump's party or cult or whatever you want to call it. I don't know if that's appropriate to say cult. And she is severely pro Israel and she has called out the United nations for being anti Semitic and being full of anti Semitic rot, moral depravity. And she sounds just like Israel's ambassador to the un Danny Danone. So it's worrisome to me because like you said, it kind of makes it look like a two state solution will be even farther pushed back beyond the horizon as an option to answering this question, this Palestinian question. I was actually after Trump said that he was nominating her, ELISE stefanik, Ambassador Danon went on X and he congratulated her. And I just kind of scrolled through the comments of that post to see what people were saying. And there was one individual who said something to the effect of, oh, this is perfect. Now Israel will have two ambassadors at the UN And I thought that kind of I thought that really hit the point, at least with how I'm thinking. I thought. Yes, right on, right there.
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Imogen Folks
Nick, what do you think? I mean, that the. It's Huckabee, isn't it? He's.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Yes.
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Imogen Folks
Mike Huckabee, appointed to ambassador to Israel.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Well, I mean, this is a man who says there's no such thing as the west bank and there is no such thing as settlements and who says that, you know, Israel has the right to sort of control the whole of sort of Judea and Samaria. Then you've got, as you as dawn has mentioned, you know, the ambassador to the UN who is rabidly pro Israel. You could take also Pete Hegseth, the incoming, if he's confirmed Secretary of defense, who has also said, you know, that the US army is the only sort of pro Christian, pro Israeli army in the world. I mean, these statements all show a very strong predilection for unqualified support for Israel, which it has taken on from, in many ways from the Biden administration.
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Imogen Folks
Leave aside maybe our own personal feelings of rights and wrongs in this conflict, although I guess we agree that there have been very many wrongs by all parties. The approach just feels to me as if it's going to store up more and more and more and more trouble and in particular humanitarian crises. I don't see a route to any kind of peace.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Well, I mean, president nominee elect Trump is going to bring peace to Ukraine as we understand it, if he is going to apply the art of the deal to bringing peace to Ukraine. The question then is on what terms? And is it going to be on terms that in somehow, you know, rein in the kind of aggressive politics that we've seen from Russia, or is it going to be terms that ultimately surrender advantages to the Kremlin and therefore leaves the rest of Europe fearing what will come next?
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Imogen Folks
Yeah, I mean, I was thinking about this today and thinking you have this horrible slightly 1938 feel about it. You know, we got a deal, we have a piece of paper. And then a year later, if I.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Could just add one other thought, and that is, you know, we're very focused on Europe and Gaza and the Middle East. But I mean, what's also concerning to perhaps is the very stridently anti Chinese line in D.C. and we, you know, tensions are ratcheting up in the Pacific area. And so does this very hawkish stand from a variety of people who have been nominated by Mr. Trump to serve in his administration, whether that's going to basically lead us into a much tenser, more conflict susceptible time in that area as well, or are we going to see that the new administration simply uses this for trade leverage?
- [21:45]
Imogen Folks
Well, we don't know. We're getting towards looking forward to 2025. Dorian, I wanted to ask you, being possibly the youngest person here.
- [21:55]
Dawn Clancy
Oh, hey, now, wait a minute, wait.
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Imogen Folks
I won't ask.
- [22:01]
Dawn Clancy
Then don't ask. Don't ask.
- [22:05]
Imogen Folks
I mean, somebody about your age, one of my sons, in fact, said it's all right for you, you've had your day. I mean, when you look at the world, do you think, oh God, this is climate change? Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, possible trade war.
- [22:24]
Dorian Burkhalter
It's totally overwhelming. I think, as you said, I mean, it's wars everywhere. And I mean, just recently, when you hear Vladimir Putin say that the conflict in Ukraine has become basically a global conflict, it's just super worrying as well as his saber rattling when it comes to nuclear weapons. And behind this all you have climate change, deepening inequalities. AI, it's just threats everywhere. And so, yeah, I mean, the narrative usually is that we have those global problems, so we need global solutions. So we need the UN and a strong multilateral system. But it seems like just the more global our problems are becoming, the weaker the UN is also becoming. So, no, I'm not too optimistic, unfortunately.
- [23:19]
Imogen Folks
No, I mean, I was hoping to try and end this podcast on some moment of optimism. I might have one or two. But first, let's have a little look at 2025 for the United nations, because one point I wanted to bring in was again related to the US Administration. Donald Trump, everybody says he's very transactional, he's quite retributional. And I think we are looking at possibly getting out of the Paris Accord again, probably leaving the Human Rights Council, possibly leaving the World Health Organization. And if this isolationist posture remains, big, big funding cuts for UN bodies. The other thing somebody speculated to me the other day is that Cindy McCain, current head of the World Food Program, will definitely be for the high jump because there's a lot of bad blood between the McCains and the Trumps and that he will. Trump will certainly want to replace the head of the World Food Program with somebody more pliant.
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Dawn Clancy
I think one of the points in what you're saying about Trump coming in, I guess one of the more disappointing things is that this isn't going to lead to any new kind of leadership. I think, you know, when you look at the Security Council, when you look at the UN as a whole, and I don't Mean to say this, to say anything poorly about the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, there's just no leadership. I'm not saying that there aren't leaders, but there's absolutely no leadership. When you look at the P5, no leadership, it's like everybody's out for their own thing. It's like I always say, although I've never read the books, Lord of the Rings, everybody's upset with this ring, and when they get the ring, they start turning into these goblins. And I just feel like the veto is like the ring. That's the P5. They've all become warped and, you know, they're rusting away from the inside with this veto. So looking ahead at 2025, I still think we're going to be lacking some major leadership. And when Trump comes in, you know, comes back, I guess it's. I could see him exactly as you said, emoji pulling out of these different, you know, Paris Agreement or the who, threatening to cut funding. Like you said, the US Is the biggest funder of the UN billions of dollars. So it's just going to be chaos and no leadership.
- [25:46]
Imogen Folks
Nick, thoughts for 2025?
- [25:53]
Nick Cumming-Bruce
Struggling to come up with any particularly positive scenarios. We have the likelihood of an already weakened COP process being weakened further by American withdrawal. We've had progress in 2024 on preparation of a pandemic treaty, which was one area of positive development, if you like. But again, we face the probability, I think, that the United States will not want to participate in taking that any further forward. We can hope that we can only hope for a positive peace in Ukraine. Sudan seems to be almost beyond the reach of all the stakeholders at the moment. So it's very difficult to see how that's going on. Yeah, Gaza, that's still nowhere on the horizon. And the whole day after the war scenario for Gaza is extremely bleak and absolutely no vision coming from any of the major powers. So, yeah, it's not a very bright and cheerful dawn of 2025.
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Imogen Folks
Dorian.
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Dorian Burkhalter
Yeah, like dawn and Nick, I mean, I fear that Trump will withdraw from UN organizations, from UN treaties, but maybe my hope is that actually he doesn't really care and that maybe the US Foreign policy is a little more robust than we fear, because I was talking to a former Swiss ambassador to the US recently, and he thought that Donald Trump, behind the big statements didn't necessarily or wasn't always this much against the UN and that then Joe Biden also, even though he returned to the who, to the Human Rights Council, wasn't necessarily always A fan of multilateralism. When we think about the Middle east negotiations were outside of the un, so maybe he doesn't really care about the UN and that leaves room for another kind of leadership. But that's probably just hopeful. And then maybe concretely we can hope for a pandemic treaty this year or next year for good. Maybe a plastic treaty.
- [28:14]
Imogen Folks
Yeah, well, then it has to be honoured, I suppose. But you're right, I mean, pandemic treaty, plastic treaty, these are the little incremental steps that, you know, multilateralism in the UN can do. What I fear is that some of the bigger stuff, it's not just as dawn said, that the P5 have become like Golem in Lord of the Rings, but that the other countries in the world, particularly in the Global south, are so disenchanted with the way the P5 are behaving and particularly what's happening in the Middle east, that they are losing faith with this multilateral system as well because of the double standards. Anyway, just a quick couple of predictions of mine for 2025. I think we might get a deal in Ukraine and we won't know for quite a while whether it's actually worked or not. It'll be something frozen where people will initially be a bit glad that people are not getting killed, but we won't know for a while whether it emboldens Russia or not. On the Middle East, I think there is terrible horrors in store still for Gaza and I think history will judge all of us actually on this one in the end. But one hopeful, one tiny hopeful thing. Well, an encouragement. I think Europe has to get its act together, has to stand up for itself. And I was in Strasbourg last week and what was quite heartening was they had a big session about 75 years of the Council of Europe, 46 members supposed to be ensuring a rights based Europe with values that, you know, the 1930s and 40s would never be repeated. And most of the people there were young people from across Europe, university students. And it was really interesting to hear about the work they were doing around human rights in Europe, around things like immigration, around climate change. And I just thought, well, at least there are still people like that around. And you had politicians from Europe who said, I'm glad you're here to these young people, hold our feet to the fire. We need it. So that is my motto for 2025. Hold their feet to the fire. And that's it from this edition of Inside Geneva. Thank you. Nick Cumming, Bruce Dawn Clancy and Dorian Burkhal, Foreigner you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss info production. You can email us on Inside GenevaissInfo Ch and subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross Unites Prisoners of War with Their Families or why Survivors of Human Rights Violations Turn to the UN in Geneva for Justice. I'm Imogen folks. Thanks again for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of Inside Geneva, do take a listen to another of our most popular episodes, Aid Organisations and Racism. We are an incredibly diverse organization, as.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Are most humanitarian organizations today.
- [32:00]
Imogen Folks
It has become a lot richer, it has become a lot closer to the.
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Nick Cumming-Bruce
Beneficiaries, but our structures haven't changed.
- [32:07]
Dorian Burkhalter
It's more difficult for me as an African to to get into a position of leadership, a position of management, than it would for someone else.
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Imogen Folks
We hear how Geneva based humanitarian agencies are soul searching as they stand accused of institutional racism. What's behind the accusations and how are they being addressed.