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the elders
Failures of World Leaders Risk Collapse of International Order
To step back from the precipice we are at, those in positions of power must show long-view leadership to build a better world for current and future generations. But time is running out.
Jun 01, 2024
Note: At the conclusion of their board meeting in São Paulo, The Elders this week called on world leaders to uphold international law and prioritize multilateral cooperation to build a better world for current and future generations. The following was their message to those leaders and the world at large.
The world stands on the edge of a precipice. The foundations of international law and multilateral cooperation are at serious risk of collapse due to cumulative failures of political leadership. We face the most perilous moment since the Second World War.
The United Nations and other institutions created to promote the stability and accountability that come through the rule of law are under attack. The growing climate of impunity for states and leaders, who show no respect for the principles on which they were founded, may take us to a point of no return.
The principles of the UN Charter risk being subsumed by aggressive nationalism and great power rivalry. This is not in any state’s long-term interest, given the existential threats to humanity that can only be tackled by global cooperation within a framework of agreed rules.
The rule of law must be applied consistently. Double standards allow autocrats to frame the universal values of human rights and international law enshrined in the UN Charter as Western constructs. They are not. They serve the interests of every country.
International law must be applied universally. No country is above the law. But the double standards being displayed by some states, particularly the most powerful, weaken the credibility of global institutions charged with upholding the rule of law.
Russia’s war on Ukraine remains an act of aggression against a sovereign state and a fundamental attack on the UN Charter with global ramifications. Russian leaders must be held accountable. We support the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) efforts to bring them to justice.
The ICC and the International Court of Justice are both fulfilling their mandates to hold parties in the Israel-Hamas conflict to account under international law.
We oppose any attempts to de-legitimize this work, and threats of punitive measures and sanctions against the ICC Prosecutor or other officials.
The rule of law must be applied consistently. Double standards allow autocrats to frame the universal values of human rights and international law enshrined in the UN Charter as Western constructs. They are not. They serve the interests of every country.
The crumbling of the international order can be seen in the proliferation of conflicts, neglected by the world’s leaders and media, affecting 2 billion people in countries including Myanmar, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti.
The failure last week to agree a new pandemics treaty for approval by the World Health Assembly is another example of weak leadership. Scientists are clear that we risk another lethal pandemic. The world has not learned the lessons from COVID-19. We urgently need leaders to engage directly to secure a global agreement to prepare for, prevent and respond to such pandemics, so the world can cope better next time.
With vital negotiations approaching on the future of the world’s climate and biodiversity, countries must have confidence that when they make agreements with each other, those commitments will be implemented.
Now is the time for leaders to be honest with their people. The unpredictability and instability that comes when the rule of law is not guaranteed threatens the security of all countries. In a year of multiple elections, citizens also have a responsibility to cast their vote wisely, choosing leaders who take a longer view of protecting their interests, and rejecting populists who exploit fears and foster division for short-term gain.
As we conclude our board meeting in Brazil, we look to the country’s leadership to seize the opportunities presented by November’s G20 Summit and the major climate conference (COP30) in 2025, to work with other countries on restoring the credibility of the multilateral system and the trust which underpins it.
To step back from the precipice we are at, those in positions of power must show long-view leadership to build a better world for current and future generations. But time is running out to strengthen the institutions that make possible the collaboration needed to do so.
The Elders are:
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Chair of The Elders
Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General and Deputy Chair of The Elders
Graça Machel, Founder of the Graça Machel Trust, Co-founder and Deputy Chair of The Elders
Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and former Director-General of the WHO
Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former head of the UN Development Programme
Elbegdorj Tsakhia, former President and Prime Minister of Mongolia
Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and co-chair of the Taskforce on Justice
Denis Mukwege, physician and human rights advocate, Nobel Peace Laureate
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia and Nobel Peace Laureate
Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Laureate
Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico
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The Elders Chair Mary Robinson Calls For Biden to Stop Arming Israel
In his meetings with the U.S. leader, Ireland's prime minister must "make it clear that Israel depends on the United States for military aid and for money," said Robinson, a former Irish president.
Mar 15, 2024
The Elders chair Mary Robinson on Friday highlighted the unique leverage that the United States has with Israel and suggested that the Biden administration should stop giving the Middle Eastern nation military assistance for its assault on the Gaza Strip.
Robinson, the former president of Ireland, conducted an on-camera interview with Irish public broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann just before her country's prime minister, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House.
"Yes the humanitarian situation is utterly catastrophic and dire, reducing a people to famine, undermining all our values, but the message I want to deliver on behalf of the Elders is a direct message to our Taoiseach Leo Varadkar," Robinson said.
"We need a cease-fire and we need the opening up of Gaza with every avenue... for aid to get in."
In his meeting with Biden, Varadkar "should not spend too much time on the dire humanitarian situation, and the ships, and the rest of it," she asserted. "He has the opportunity to deliver a political message in a very direct way. The United States can influence Israel by not continuing to provide arms. It has provided a lot of the arms... that have been used on the Palestinian people."
Since Israel declared war in response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 31,490 people in Gaza—including people seeking food aid—and injured another 73,439. The assault has also devastated civilian infrastructure, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques, and displaced the vast majority of the enclave's 2.3 million residents.
Israel is also restricting desperately needed humanitarian aid into the Hamas-governed territory, and Palestinians have begun starving to death—which people around the world point to as further proof that the Israeli government is defying an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to prevent genocidal acts as the South Africa-led case moves forward at The Hague.
The United States gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid, and since October 7, Biden—who faces a genocide complicity case in federal court—has fought for another $14.3 billion while his administration has repeatedly bypassed Congress to arm Israeli forces. Critics, including some lawmakers, argue that continuing to send weapons to Israel violates U.S. law.
The far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "is on the wrong side of history, completely—is making the United States complicit in reducing a people to famine, making the world complicit," Robinson told RTÉ. "We're all watching. It is absolutely horrific what is happening."
Elders’ Chair Mary Robinson says President Biden should not continue to provide arms to Israel.
“The United States can influence Israel by not continuing to provide arms… The Government of Prime Minister Netanyahu is on the wrong side of history, completely. It’s making the… pic.twitter.com/fN3ptMjktz
— The Elders (@TheElders) March 15, 2024
"So Leo Varadkar has access today to President Biden," she said. "He must use this completely politically at all levels with the speaker of the House, with everyone, to make it clear that Israel depends on the United States for military aid and for money. That's what will change everything."
"We need a cease-fire and we need the opening up of Gaza with every avenue... for aid to get in, because the situation's so bad, and we need the political way forward, which is the two-state solution," she added. "So we need an Israeli government agreeing to that, and only the United States can put the pressure [on Israel]."
Robinson, who spent five years as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights after her presidency ended in 1997, has been part of the Elders since Nelson Mandela, the late anti-apartheid South African president, announced the group in 2007.
She has made multiple statements during the five-month Israeli assault on Gaza, including calling on Israel to comply with the ICJ's January ruling and warning Biden the previous month that his "support for Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza is losing him respect all over the world."
"The U.S. is increasingly isolated, with allies like Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and Poland switching their votes in the U.N. General Assembly to support an immediate humanitarian cease-fire," she said in December. "The destruction of Gaza is making Israel less safe. President Biden's continuing support for Israel's actions is also making the world less safe, the Security Council less effective, and U.S. leadership less respected. It is time to stop the killing."
US President Joe Biden and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar pledged to work to secure a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza cast a shadow on the annual St. Patrick's Day reception at the White House https://t.co/gQBGDZZ4Ud pic.twitter.com/QGEPSzOk2G
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 15, 2024
Speaking to press at the Oval Office alongside Biden on Friday, Varadkar
said that he was "keen to talk about the situation in Gaza," and noted his view "that we need to have a cease-fire as soon as possible to get food and medicine in" to the besieged territory.
"On Sunday, the taoiseach will also gift Mr. Biden a bowl of shamrock as part of an annual tradition to mark St Patrick's Day," RTÉ reported Friday. "Mr. Varadkar started the trip on Monday, and since then has spoken several times... about how he will use the special platform of the St Patrick's Day visit to press Mr. Biden to back a cease-fire in the Gaza, while also thanking the U.S. for leadership in support for Ukraine."
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To Secure Lasting Peace, Advocates Say Women Must Be Central to Negotiations
"Women and girls are often the first responders to the world's crises," said one women's rights leader. "Their voice matters in peace-building."
Mar 08, 2023
As communities and governments around the world marked International Women's Day on Wednesday, the need to include women in peace negotiations and place the needs of women and girls at the center of peace-building was a key theme of discussions at the United Nations Security Council.
The council met Tuesday to address the status of a resolution adopted nearly 23 years ago in October 2000, when international policymakers agreed on "the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response, and in post-conflict reconstruction."
The current state of Resolution 1325, said Sima Bahous, executive director of U.N. Women, shows that the world is in need of "a radical change of direction" regarding gender equality.
Bahous noted that days after the security council met in 2020 to mark the 20th anniversary of the resolution, a conflict broke out in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. During two years of fighting, sexual violence was "committed at a staggering scale," and child marriage increased by 51%.
"Since the 20th anniversary," Bahous said, "there have been several military coups in conflict-affected countries, from the Sahel and Sudan to Myanmar, dramatically shrinking the civic space for women's organizations and activists, if not altogether closing it."
"Women's participation increases the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years by 20%, and by 35% the probability of a peace agreement lasting 15 years."
Women and girls also make up 90% of the nearly eight million Ukrainians who have been forced to flee to other countries since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and 68% of those who are internally displaced.
While the suffering of women and girls has been central to these conflicts, women were "excluded from 80% of peace negotiations from 2005 to 2020," Bahous said, adding, "We have neither significantly changed the composition of peace tables, nor the impunity enjoyed by those who commit atrocities against women and girls."
In a 2015 report on implementation of Resolution 1325, U.N. Women showed that the agreement led to "a substantial increase in the frequency of gender-responsive language in peace agreements and the number of women, women's groups, and gender experts who serve as official negotiators, mediators, or signatories."
Women's inclusion is frequently temporary and "more symbolic than substantive," according to the report, failing to lead to "a shift in dynamics, a broadening of the issues discussed."
An analysis of 40 worldwide peace agreements since the end of the Cold War showed that negotiators had a much higher chance of reaching a deal "in cases where women were able to exercise a strong influence on the negotiation process."
"Women's participation increases the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years by 20%, and by 35% the probability of a peace agreement lasting 15 years," the U.N. Women report reads.
Evidence of the importance of women's involvement in peace processes "is there staring us in the face," said Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, the United Kingdom's minister of state for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and the United Nations.
"This council, this security council, knows that mediation, conflict prevention, and resolution have proven more successful time and time again when they are inclusive," said Ahmad. "They work better. They last longer when women are central to peace and building progressive societies... Yet it is an undeniable fact. Here we sit in 2023 and we are seeing tragically, a stagnation of the women, peace, and security agenda and a regression in women's rights around the world."
Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos has spoken frequently about the inclusion of women in peace talks in his country following decades of civil war, leading to a section of the peace accords that ensures women will receive specific benefits post-conflict in recognition of the disproportionate effects war has on women and girls.
"The participation of women at the formal negotiating table and within the wider peace process has been a crucial aspect of the journey towards peace in Colombia," said Santos on Monday, in a statement he made as a member of The Elders, a group of global leaders working for peace.
"But the task of women peace-builders is not an easy one," Santos added. "All too often, they face threats and denigration from within their own communities. It is incumbent on political leaders, governments and international organizations to recognize and defend their role, and put the necessary measures in place to ensure their safety and security."
Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, another Elder, said that "women and girls are often the first responders to the world's crises, working across the dividing lines of conflict."
\u201c\u201cThis International Women\u2019s Day, I join my fellow Elders in underlining the importance of fully integrating women peace-builders into peace negotiations and decision-making processes.\u201d \u2013 @MaEllenSirleaf\n\nLearn more: https://t.co/5Gsr4QX1TZ\n\n#IWD2023\u201d— The Elders (@The Elders) 1678285240
While Colombia's peace negotiations centered women, Bineta Diop, the African Union Commission's special envoy on women, peace, and security, reported that many women in African countries experiencing conflict "are engaged in the community and peace-building initiatives," but "their voice is yet to be heard in peace negotiations and mediation where roadmaps to return to peace are drawn."
Bahous suggested the security council change direction with "mandates, conditions, quotas, funding earmarks, incentives, and consequences for non-compliance."
"We cannot expect 2025 to be any different," she said, "if the bulk of our interventions continue to be trainings, sensitization, guidance, capacity building, setting up networks, and holding one event after another to talk about women's participation, rather than mandating it in every meeting and decision-making process in which we have authority."
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