The role of national liberation politics and the centrality of Palestine to a new global alternative
Pro-Palestinian protesters seen on O’Connell Street, Dublin, during a rally for Palestine on 22 May 2021
Declan Kearney writes in Mondoweiss on 29 September 2025:
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.
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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.
Declan Kearney is the current National Chairman of Sinn Féin