When the United Nations Security Council met last Wednesday, it was an extraordinary moment. All members, bar the United States, declared that the famine in Gaza is a manmade catastrophe. In a rare show of unity, 14 out of 15 council members also called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, for the release of all Israeli hostages, and for the lifting of its restrictions on humanitarian aid.
It should have been a historic turning point. Instead, it was another painful reminder of how broken our global system is – that even when the world’s highest body for peace and security speaks with one voice, it remains powerless, because one country shields another from accountability.
For nearly two years, Gaza has been subjected to destruction on a scale that some historians and legal experts have described as “genocidal”. Entire families have been erased, hospitals bombed, children starved. And it continues not because the world lacks awareness or the legal tools, but because the international system is designed in such a way that morality is always subordinate to power.
The Security Council, with its five permanent members and their vetoes, is a relic of a post-Second World War world order that no longer reflects today’s reality. It was built to serve the interests of victors, not the collective interest of humanity. And so when atrocities occur, when the law is clear and the suffering undeniable, the council can still be silenced by the political calculations of one capital.
Gaza is not the first example of this paralysis, but it is perhaps the clearest and most brutal. International law prohibits the use of starvation as a weapon, and yet the council cannot enforce it. International law demands the protection of civilians and hospitals, and yet the council cannot guarantee it.
Around the world, people have marched in their millions, governments have spoken out, and civil society has raised its voice again and again. Almost every state represented in the Security Council understands the urgency. And still, the paralysis remains.
It reveals a bitter truth: the global order is not built to serve justice, but to protect the interests of the powerful. If the US can veto accountability for Israel, then Russia can veto accountability for Syria or Ukraine; China can do the same elsewhere. Atrocities become a currency in the game of global politics, and those who suffer are condemned not by their own actions but by the alliances of those who oppress them.
We can no longer pretend that minor reforms will fix this. The Security Council veto power is not just an obstacle; it is a weapon that perpetuates injustice. As long as a single country can block the will of the international community, there will never be accountability for the crimes of the powerful. What is needed is not tinkering at the edges, but a fundamental rethinking of how the world responds to crises. We need mechanisms that put humanity above hegemony, that place international law above political alliances, that make the prevention of atrocities a non-negotiable imperative rather than a bargaining chip.
The Security Council’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is welcome, but it comes two years too late – tens of thousands of lives too late. Entire generations too late.
It is not only Gaza that cries out for a ceasefire. The world needs a ceasefire with the past – with a hierarchy of power that belongs to another century and that has cost us too much in this one. Only then can we begin to build an international system that does what it was always meant to do: stand for humanity.
