This Thursday marks the 79th birthday of the United Nations, which was born when the UN Charter came into force on Oct. 24, 1945, after the horror and carnage of World War II. As flawed and challenged as the UN can seem at times, the good it does and the hope it brings still shine as a beacon of our better angels in a tormented world. If it didn’t exist already, we would have to invent it all over again.
Lately, however, it has seemed weakened and powerless to stop the brutal wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Yemen. The subject of foreign policy has not been a dominant theme of the 2024 presidential election campaign — but it should be. American leadership, diplomacy and work with our global alliances to help mitigate these wars have never been more important. This is also the deadliest time in memory for journalists, media workers and foreign correspondents covering the world’s crises and conflicts.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in an address to the General Assembly last month that the rising level of impunity in the world is “politically indefensible and morally intolerable” — with many Governments and actors feeling entitled to a “get out of jail free” card — despite the alarm world leaders have raised about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
photo by Mathias Reding
The UN General Assembly is still a place where the nations of the world can gather, speak, debate, argue and take stock. Just the fact that they are meeting has helped, at times, stave off misunderstanding and war. And when conflict comes, UN peacekeepers are often the ones sent in to help quell it. Over 2 million men and women have served under the blue flag as peacekeepers and military police since 1948. I have spent time with UN peacekeepers on three continents, and I admire their courage and dedication to protecting lives in dangerous conflict zones.
The world owes them a debt of gratitude. Tragically, more than 4,200 peacekeepers have lost their lives in the cause of peace. The UN extols their "service and sacrifice” as one of the most substantive examples of the UN Charter’s determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.
Given the carnage still unfolding around the globe, this is not the happiest United Nations Day, with so many of the world’s people suffering and dying. Ukrainian civilians continue to be slaughtered mercilessly by an invading Russian army deployed by a murderous Russian despot. After a Hamas terrorist murdered more than 1,200 Israeli men, women and children on Oct. 7 a year ago, and took 250 hostages, the Israel retaliation has been relentless, killing more than 43,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gazan health officials. Now that conflict has spread to Lebanon.
Yet the UN continues to shine a spotlight on malign regimes, bloody wars and intractable strife around the world.
International journalists are doing their part as well in trying to report the news from these faraway places, shining their own light into the darkness. Never has it been a more dangerous time for them as well. The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the USA (AFPC-USA) has joined other press freedom and human rights organizations to decry the unprecedented killing of journalists and media workers in the Israel-Hamas war and called on President Biden and Congress to do more to ensure the safety of journalists there. More journalists have been killed in the war in Gaza in the last year — at least 128 — than at any other time since the Committee to Protect Journalists started keeping records in the early 1990s.
According to the UN, "Since 1993, more than 1,700 journalists have been killed for reporting the news and bringing information to the public. In nine out of ten cases,the killers go unpunished, according to the UNESCO observatory of killed journalists. Impunity leads to more killings and is often a symptom of worsening conflict and the breakdown of law and judicial systems.”
Next week, on Nov. 2, the UN will mark International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. Remember that journalists are civilians and not combatants, and they should not be killed with impunity for doing their jobs. This day is meant to call attention to their plight and the dangers they face — and step up calls for accountability for their killers.
The work they do to bring the stories home to readers and viewers can shape politics, policies and the public good. Their evidence-based reporting can help leaders of nations and the UN decide what priorities should rise to the top of their agendas on the world stage. So impunity for their killers has got to stop. It is just one of the many priorities for the UN as it approaches its 80th year — and for other international and human rights organizations. But it is also one of the most important in defense of humanity, the rule of law and free expression around the world.
—Storer Rowley