To Save Us From Hell

In the 79 years of the United Nations, no country has ever declared a UN Secretary General Persona Non-Grata—until now. On Wednesday, Israel made history when it PNG’d Antonio Guterres, saying he was no longer welcome to set foot on Israeli soil. The reason? In a statement condemning Iran’s attack on Israel, he apparently didn’t condemn it enough. Meanwhile, can the UN stop the escalating war between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran? And finally, we are down to two candidates to be the next Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs. We discuss all this and more! https://www.globaldispatches.org/

It’s an annual UNGA tradition!

For the umpteenth year in a row, Richard Gowan, Anjali Dayal, and I sit down for a wide-ranging chat about all things UNGA. Richard Gowan, of course, is the oft-quoted UN expert who serves as the UN Director of the International Crisis Group.

The three of us caught up a few hours after Biden’s farewell UNGA address and spent a good portion of our conversation dissecting his speech and reflecting on how the United Nations has changed during Biden's tenure as U.S. President. We also discussed Antonio Guterres’ speech and his coinage of a catchy new phrase to describe geopolitics today: “purgatory of polarity.” We kick off, however, by discussing the drama that unfolded at the Summit of the Future, where Russian malfeasance threatened to torpedo years of negotiations—all at the last minute.

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Linda Thomas-Greenfield made big waves around the UN this week when she rolled out a new and rather detailed American proposal for reforming the staid United Nations Security Council. The proposal is quite concrete and would likely be popular among most of the 193 UN member states. But is this just a cynical ploy to curry favor with Africa and much of the developing world ahead of UNGA? And how could a plan like this turn from an idea into concrete action? In today’s episode, Anjali Dayal and Mark Leon Goldberg dissect the Biden administration’s push for Security Council reform — and whether or not it can succeed.

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About 140 world leaders are scheduled to address the opening of the 79th United Nations General Assembly. That’s a lot of speeches! In today’s episode, co-hosts Mark Leon Goldberg and Anjali Dayal preview some of the most anticipated speeches of UNGA. From inspirational and high-minded addresses by moral heavyweights to cringeworthy speeches by coup leaders and war criminals, we break down some of the key speeches that will drive the agenda during UN week. This is your preview of the United Nations General Assembly Speech-a-thon.

The full episode is available exclusively to paid subscribers. But not to worry—we're running a UNGA special! Visit this link to get a discounted subscription and unlock this episode and all future episodes of To Save Us From Hell.

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"A rare bright spot amid the disastrous conflict in the Gaza Strip" is how UNICEF described the successful first phase of a massive polio vaccination campaign in Gaza. Polio was confirmed three weeks ago, and over the last several days, UNICEF, the WHO, and UNRWA have taken advantage of humanitarian pauses in the fighting to administer hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses. In our first segment, we discuss how this vaccination campaign is being carried out and why it has been successful so far, while other humanitarian interventions have faltered. What makes this polio vaccination campaign so different?

Next, we examine a new piece in Foreign Affairs by UN Peacekeeping Chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, which laments the lack of peace-making efforts in the world today. Lastly, Anjali interviews Kayla Redstone from the Universal Postal Union, a little-known but hugely important UN agency that enables people to send mail and parcels virtually anywhere in the world. It’s mundane multilateralism—and it works!

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On August 8th, a committee representing most UN Member States approved a draft text of a new United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime. Despite the support from the majority of UN member states, civil society and private sector groups are arguing against its adoption. In fact, the proposed Convention on Cybercrime has the dubious distinction of being opposed by industry titans like CISCO, Amazon, and Microsoft, as well as major watchdogs such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Human Rights Watch.

So, what is the problem with this convention? And how did an idea that originated with Russia, and is backed by China, North Korea, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria, Cambodia, Venezuela, and Belarus, end up gaining the support of most other UN member states, including the United States and Europe?Today’s episode of To Save Us From Hell takes a deep dive into the UN Cybercrime Convention and is available exclusively to our community of paying supporters. Go here for a discounted subscription: https://www.globaldispatches.org/SaveUs

The Summit of the Future is a two day confab on September 22 and 23 that kicks off the opening of the United Nations General Assembly and High Level Week. It is being billed as “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to revitalize the UN and multilateralism in a time of great global turmoil and restore trust in international cooperation as a means of solving common global challenges. That may sound impractically idealistic, but the Summit itself is the culmination of years of discussions, negotiations and diplomacy around concrete policies and proposals intended to bring about certain reforms to the UN that would make it more responsive to future global challenges.

Our “To Save Us From Hell” podcast episode today is devoted entirely to the Summit of the Future and some of the specific UN reforms on the table. Co-host Anjali Dayal and Mark Leon Goldberg have a long conversation with the Stimson Center’s Richard Ponzio about the significance of the Summit of the Future and what to expect from the Summit’s three big outcome documents.

As certified UN-Nerds, Anjali Dayal and Mark Leon Goldberg's ears always perk up when they see the UN represented in pop culture. In this special episode of To Save Us From Hell, we take a deep dive into how the United Nations is portrayed in popular music, television shows, and film. From Lou Reed to Charlize Theron to Doctor Who —we explore the cultural impact of the United Nations from the 1950s to today.

Our first segment discusses both spurious and verified accusations that some UNRWA staff in Gaza may have been involved October 7th attacks. Two new reports this week shed light on how wild accusations against UNRWA are less than credible. Our second segment looks at how the UN is approaching the war in Sudan, which by the numbers is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. We discuss a Security Council meeting on Darfur featuring the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and a second meeting on the humanitarian crisis, including a recent report showing famine conditions are spreading among 500,000 people in a vast IDP camp in Darfur. In our third segment, we discuss the International Seabed Authority, which is an entity created by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that seeks to regulate deep sea mining. The International Seabed Authority recently had a hotly contested election for Secretary General that pitted an incumbent favored by industry against a challenger preferred by conservationists and scientists.

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Before we sat down to record this week’s episode, authorities in Iran announced that Hamas’ political leader, Ismael Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran. This news came just hours after Israel claimed responsibility for the targeted assassination of a top Hezbollah commander, who was killed in retaliation for a gruesome missile attack in the Golan Heights. Amidst this flurry, there is a heightened prospect that conflict will escalate further throughout the region.

However, the UN offers a way out of this escalatory spiral, identified no less by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which on Wednesday released a statement saying, “The only way to prevent an all-out war is the immediate implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.” In our first segment, we explain what this means and whether an 18-year-old Security Council resolution can really prevent a wider war in the Middle East.

Our second segment uses the occasion of Sierra Leone becoming the President of the Security Council for the month of August to tell the good-news story of one of the most successful UN peacekeeping missions of all time. Our third segment takes a deep dive into the work of ECOSOC, the Economic and Social Council, a UN body that receives very little attention despite its highly consequential work.

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