Neglecting the UN could lead to a fragile world of unstable bilateral relations, Caritas warns

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Marginalising the United Nations and its work to build peace and security based on international law could lead the world back into a fragile and unpredictable system of bilateral relations and balance-of-power politics, Caritas International Secretary-General Alistair Dutton told Euronews in an interview in New York.

During the UN general assembly on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump sharply criticised the intergovernmental organisation, calling it an institution of “empty words”.

The following day, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised international institutions like the UN for failing to stop wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and in other countries, and said that survival has become a matter of “weapons”, rather than international law.

Although not commenting directly on the leaders’ speeches, Dutton said that undermining the role of international law risked beckoning a fragile system of bilateral relations, and said that states are “testing the limits and challenging the application of international law”.

“I think if state leaders marginalise the United Nations, we risk returning to a much more fragile system of bilateral relations and balance-of-power politics, which would be far more unpredictable,” the secretary general told Euronews.

“We are here at the United Nations, which was founded at a time when states came together to create and strengthen international law as a way to build and maintain peace between nations,” he said.

“It’s clearly a very difficult time for [strengthening international law]. The norms and multilateralism are being stretched, and world leaders may not be treating them with the respect they once had. But those norms still exist and retain both moral and legal force,” Dutton added.

Global humanitarian aid has been slashed

Since the beginning of his second presidency, Trump has cut US government funds dedicated to foreign aid including USAID, and this has been echoed by other governments which have also cut aid budgets.

“This is already a huge challenge for Caritas and the entire humanitarian community. About 40% of the global aid budget has been cut this year. As a result, larger organisations have had to reduce staffing and costs by roughly 35%, making these organisations much smaller,” said Dutton.

He said that the reduction of the budget for aid organisations means less people in need will be helped worldwide.