This month marks the 80th anniversary of the United Nations Charter being adopted, which has become the foundation of the United Nations itself and our international law framework.

The Charter emphasizes the universal nature of human rights, the exercise of self-determination, and global peace.

Following the defeat of fascism in 1945, the UN Charter fueled the emergence of a new international moral order which established the primacy of multilateralism, diplomacy and peaceful coexistence in managing global relations.

In the colonized countries of the Global South, it inspired a wave of anti-colonial and independence struggles. The Charter directly challenged the existence of imperialism and colonialism. In short, it declared the right of oppressed peoples to be free and to self-determination.

Ten years later in 1955, the Bandung Conference brought together 29 newly independent and still colonized countries. This was another watershed moment. It gave voice to the popular aspiration of peoples in the Global South to control their own destinies.

The Bandung Principles explicitly expressed support for universal fundamental rights, and the UN Charter; for national self-determination and sovereignty; opposition to racial domination; and, for equality and peace.

The Bandung Principles foreshadowed the launch of the South African Freedom Charter just two months later.

From the midst of the apartheid regime and Afrikaner repression of the black and coloured people majority, the Freedom Charter outlined a democratic vision for South Africa with equality, justice and shared prosperity at its heart. It made clear that ‘the people shall govern’ and ‘the land shall be shared among those who work it’.

This was a seminal proclamation about the future of South Africa at that time.

While it initially receded from popular memory in the face of relentless repression, it later became a catalyst for the resurgent national liberation struggle in the 1980s.

As a result, the intensified armed struggle and emphasis on mass mobilisation throughout South Africa provided inspiration to other national independence and anti-colonial struggles elsewhere in Africa, as well as Latin America, Palestine, the Basque Country, and Ireland.

The central importance of the UN Charter, and enduring legacies of the Bandung Principles and South African Freedom Charter, represent important frameworks to inform how the challenges and contradictions of the modern geopolitical context are managed. They codify the basis of a new rights-based, world order.

Currently, the UN Charter and multilateralism are under sustained and deliberate attack.

Since the beginning of 2025, the words and actions of the new US administration have confirmed its total rejection of the existing rules-based approach to managing geopolitical relations.

A new, dangerous world order is emerging. The most graphic evidence is clear in US complicity with the Israeli Zionist plan to annihilate the Palestinian people, by prosecuting an apocalyptic genocide in Gaza, and annexation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel systematically violates international law. It defies the UN Charter and is carrying out multiple crimes against humanity in Palestine because the US allows it to do so with complete impunity.

As a result, the entire Middle East region is being destabilized and pushed towards a political abyss. But this suits US imperial interests.

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