As we step in­to 2026, the word “peace” is on the lips of many. While peace build­ing is all our busi­ness, how ef­fec­tive is the Unit­ed Na­tions in achiev­ing its goals e.g. to main­tain glob­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty, de­vel­op friend­ly re­la­tions be­tween na­tions, and pro­mote hu­man rights?

On this day in his­to­ry, Jan­u­ary 10th, 1946, the first UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly con­vened in Lon­don. The UN Char­ter was signed on June 26, 1945. The UN had of­fi­cial­ly come in­to force on Oc­to­ber 24, 1945.

Aman­da Huan stat­ed in her ar­ti­cle (8/10/25): “In­creas­ing­ly, the Unit­ed Na­tions is seen as an in­ef­fec­tive body in man­ag­ing con­flicts in the world. The prob­lem is the ve­to pow­er of the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. Re­form must be car­ried out read­i­ly to pre­serve the val­ue of hav­ing this in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion for se­cur­ing world peace.”

Last Sat­ur­day, in light of the Unit­ed States’ mil­i­tary ac­tion in Venezuela, UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res warned that the US had set a “dan­ger­ous prece­dent” for the world or­der. The UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil held an emer­gency meet­ing on Jan­u­ary 5. In­ter alia, Guter­res told am­bas­sadors:

“I am deeply con­cerned about the pos­si­ble in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of in­sta­bil­i­ty in the coun­try, the po­ten­tial im­pact on the re­gion, and the prece­dent it may set for how re­la­tions be­tween and among states are con­duct­ed. I have con­sis­tent­ly stressed the im­per­a­tive of full re­spect, by all, for in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions, which pro­vides the foun­da­tion for the main­te­nance of in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

“I re­main deeply con­cerned that rules of in­ter­na­tion­al law have not been re­spect­ed with re­gard to the 3 Jan­u­ary mil­i­tary ac­tion.

The Char­ter en­shrines the pro­hi­bi­tion of the threat or use of force against the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty or po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence of any state.

The main­te­nance of in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty de­pends on the con­tin­ued com­mit­ment of all Mem­ber States to ad­here to all the pro­vi­sions of the Char­ter.”

Pope Leo said on Sun­day: “The good of the beloved Venezue­lan peo­ple must pre­vail over every oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion and lead us to over­come vi­o­lence and to un­der­take paths of jus­tice and peace, safe­guard­ing the coun­try’s sov­er­eign­ty, en­sur­ing the rule of law en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion, re­spect­ing the hu­man and civ­il rights of each per­son and of all, and work­ing to build to­geth­er a serene fu­ture of col­lab­o­ra­tion, sta­bil­i­ty, and con­cord, with spe­cial at­ten­tion to the poor­est who suf­fer be­cause of the dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion.”

The lead­ers of Spain, Brazil, Chile, Colom­bia, Mex­i­co and Uruguay is­sued a joint state­ment on Sun­day “re­ject­ing the US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion that led to the oust­ing of … Nicolás Maduro and warned against the ap­pro­pri­a­tion of the coun­try’s vast nat­ur­al re­sources af­ter the US said it would run Venezuela on the in­ter­im. The lead­ers said ... that the US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion had vi­o­lat­ed the “ba­sic prin­ci­ples of in­ter­na­tion­al law, in par­tic­u­lar the pro­hi­bi­tion of the use of force and re­spect for ter­ri­to­r­i­al sov­er­eign­ty es­tab­lished in the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter.

“These ac­tions con­sti­tute a dan­ger­ous prece­dent for peace, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pose a risk to the civ­il pop­u­la­tion .... We re­it­er­ate that the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela must be re­solved ex­clu­sive­ly through di­a­logue and in ac­cor­dance with the will of the Venezue­lan peo­ple, with­out in­ter­fer­ence and ad­her­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al law’. The lead­ers of these coun­tries have “ex­pressed their con­cerns about the ex­ploita­tion of Venezue­lan nat­ur­al and strate­gic re­sources, which they al­so say would be in­com­pat­i­ble with in­ter­na­tion­al law and sov­er­eign­ty ... the Eu­ro­pean Union has called for re­straint and re­spect for the UN Char­ter but has been care­ful not to crit­i­cise open­ly the op­er­a­tion or Trump’s han­dling of it” (Eu­roNews).

His­to­ry Pro­fes­sor, Alan McPher­son, of Tem­ple Uni­ver­si­ty, has said it is “very rare” for US in­ter­ven­tions in the re­gion to be fol­lowed by “peace, tran­quil­li­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and democ­ra­cy. US in­ter­ven­tions al­most al­ways cre­ate long-term prob­lems of suc­ces­sion.”

Den­mark’s prime min­is­ter has told Don­ald Trump to “stop the threats” about tak­ing over Green­land. “Mette Fred­erik­sen said, “The US has no right to an­nex any of the three na­tions in the Dan­ish king­dom.” Her re­marks come af­ter Katie Miller—the wife of one of Trump’s aides, Stephen Miller—tweet­ed a map of Green­land in the colours of the Amer­i­can flag along­side the word “SOON”. Trump has re­peat­ed­ly raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Green­land be­com­ing an an­nexed part of the US, cit­ing its strate­gic lo­ca­tion and min­er­al wealth” (BBC).

And see the threats made by Pres­i­dent Trump to a num­ber of oth­er coun­tries.

Who will build peace in our trou­bled world?