A reading of the General Assembly speeches: Justice for Palestine and the decline of unipolarity

The General Assembly speeches reveal a dual crisis in the international system. The first concerns the absence of justice, manifested most clearly in Palestine; the second relates to a shift in the international balance of power, evident in the wars in Iran and Ukraine. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned of violence, displacement, settlement expansion and the spectre of ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, citing the Palestinian question as a stark example of the crisis of legitimacy and the selective application of international law. He spoke explicitly of the need to comply with the International Court of Justice’s legally binding provisional measures in the genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa and other states. Guterres described the […]