The United States’ reprisal of its Globo-cop role in Venezuela validates, for the hundredth time, the United Nations’ irrelevance. The excruciating irony of the UN Security Council largely condemning the US action five kilometres from the federal court where deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was produced to face drug trafficking charges was not lost on the world. So, where does the UN go from here?

US ambassador Mike Waltz went so far as to issue a veiled threat: “If the UN in this body confers legitimacy on an illegitimate narco-terrorist and the same treatment in this charter on a democratically elected president or head of state, what kind of organisation is this?” UN Secretary General António Guterres seemed to agree with Waltz’s contention that the legitimacy of Maduro’s re-election in 2024 was doubtful and admitted that the UN had been concerned about human rights violations by the Maduro regime.

Failure to act on human rights abuses

But the question of what the UN had done to address its concerns vis-a-vis Maduro remained unasked. The eight million Venezuelans who fled the country and the families of the thousands who were illegally jailed, tortured, raped, and killed from 2014 onwards might want to know. In fact, the UN human rights agency was kicked out of Venezuela in 2024. The world looked on silently as Venezuela spiralled into chaos. Only now, when the undemocratic Maduro has been ‘Trumped’, have nations called for a restoration of democracy.

Post-Covid decline in UN influence

The manifest decline in the UN’s political clout has accelerated post-Covid. Its condemnation of Russia’s assault on Ukraine and Israel’s aggression in Gaza achieved........

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