Francesca Albanese did not mince her words. In a strongly worded speech at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on October 29, the UN Special Rapporteur deviated from the typical line of other UN officials. She directed her statements to those in attendance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIs it possible that after 42,000 people killed, you cannot empathize with the Palestinians?\u201d Albanese said<\/a> in her statement about the need to \u201crecognize (Israel\u2019s war on Gaza) as a genocide\u201d. \u201cThose of you who have not uttered a word about what is happening in Gaza demonstrate that empathy has evaporated from this room,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Was Albanese too idealistic when she chose to appeal to empathy, which, in her words, represents \u201cthe glue that makes us stand united as humanity\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer largely depends on how we wish to define the role being played by the UN and its various institutions; whether its global platform was established as a guarantor of peace, or as a political club for those with military might and political power to impose their agendas on the rest of the world? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Albanese is not the first person to express deep frustration with the institutional, let alone the moral collapse of the UN, or the inability of the institution to affect any kind of tangible change, especially during times of great crises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The UN\u2019s own Secretary-General Antonio Guterres himself had accused the executive branch of the UN, the Security Council, of being \u201coutdated\u201d, \u201cunfair\u201d and an \u201cineffective system\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe truth is that the Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today,\u201d he said<\/a>, referring to \u201cSudan, Gaza, Ukraine\u201d. Also, although noting that \u201cThe UN is not the Security Council\u201d, Guterres acknowledged that all UN bodies \u201csuffer from the fact that the people look at them and think, \u2018Well, but the Security Council has failed us.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some UN officials, however, are mainly concerned about how the UN\u2019s failure is compromising the standing of the international system, thus whatever remains of their own credibility. But some, like Albanese, are indeed driven by an overriding sense of humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On October 28, 2023, mere weeks after the start of the war, the director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights left<\/a> his post because he could no longer find any room to reconcile between the failure to stop the war in Gaza and the credibility of the institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis will be my last communication to you,\u201d Craig Mokhiber wrote to the UN high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk. \u201cOnce again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it,\u201d Mokhiber added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The phrase \u201conce again\u201d may explain why the UN official made his decision to leave shortly after the start of the war. He felt that history was repeating itself, in all its gory details, while the international community remained divided between powerlessness and apathy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is multilayered, complicated by the fact that UN officials and employees do not have the power to alter the very skewed structure of the world\u2019s largest political institution. That power lies in the hands of those who wield political, military, financial and veto power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n