Critique of Proposed 'Charter of the Board of Peace' as an Imperialist Mechanism Threatening Global Order

Trembling and collapsing before the global rampage of the US-Israel alliance, a cowardly world has once again made the Palestinian people a scapegoat, sacrificing with them the entire global system of international law.

I have previously written about the globally humiliating surrender document codified in the notorious (and clearly illegal) United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803, and the contemptible imperialist dictates from Trump upon which that resolution was based.

However, the latest outrage, declared by the empire as an autocratic ‘Charter of the Board of Peace’, not only endangers the existence of the indigenous Palestinian people but also puts the entire world at risk due to its broad and limitless language that recognizes no geographical jurisdiction.

• Imperialist Charter

This body, conceived as an ‘international organization’ headed by Donald Trump, will possess international legal personality, legal capacity, and international ‘privileges and immunities’.

Directly attacking established international institutions like the UN in its preamble, this imperialist charter begins by calling to ‘break away from approaches and institutions that have repeatedly failed’. Furthermore, its very first article declares its right to operate in ‘any area affected by or at risk of conflict’.

In other words, Trump aims to replace the law-based United Nations with an imperialist mechanism. This unaccountable, ‘rogue’ body will have global reach, and its impunity will be effectively guaranteed.

He will remain the chairman of the ‘Board of Peace’ until he voluntarily resigns or becomes incapacitated. He is granted the authority to appoint his successor and will be the final arbiter of the ‘meaning, interpretation, and application’ of the charter.

The inherently autocratic nature of this new body is evident throughout the charter. Most power is vested not in any accountable, intergovernmental, cooperative, or democratic mechanism, nor in any single state, but in Donald Trump himself.

Thus, Trump is explicitly empowered to act as the Board's chairman and the representative of the United States. He alone has the authority to appoint Board members, approve alternate members, renew members' terms, remove members (unless the Board, filled by his cronies, decides by a 2/3 majority that they must remain), set the Board's agenda, convene special meetings, issue ‘resolutions or other directives’ personally, and approve all Board decisions, all ‘subject only to the provisions of the charter’.

Trump will also have the ‘prerogative’ to create, modify, and dissolve subsidiary bodies, establish subcommittees and determine their mandates, structures, and rules personally, select, appoint, and remove members of the ‘Board of Peace’ executive board (at his sole discretion), veto any decision of the executive board, and convene further meetings of the executive board.

He will remain the chairman of the ‘Board of Peace’ until he voluntarily resigns or becomes incapacitated. He is granted the authority to appoint his successor and will be the final authority on the ‘meaning, interpretation, and application’ of the charter. And, only he can approve any amendment to the charter.

In short, this charter is an authoritarian dream for Trump and an ‘Orwellian’ nightmare for the rest of the world.

• A Congregation of Rogues

The Board's charter, which allows for no conditions or reservations, stipulates that members will be appointed at the presidential level for three-year terms renewable by Trump himself. However, this three-year limit will not apply to members who contribute $1 billion in ‘cash’.

The most reprehensible aspect is that while the Israel-US genocide continues in Palestine, these two perpetrators will serve as the leader and a member, respectively, of a board expected to impose its colonial control over Gaza.

According to its charter, the Board can be constituted with just three members (the US and two others). The full list of countries and individuals will be announced by Trump on Thursday. But he has already amassed a large congregation of traitors, complicit regimes, corrupt financial operators, and individual war criminals.

The most reprehensible aspect is that while the Israel-US genocide continues in Palestine, these two perpetrators will serve as the leader and a member, respectively, of a board expected to impose its colonial control over Gaza.

The head of the genocidal Israeli apartheid regime and fugitive indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity in Palestine, Benjamin Netanyahu, has agreed to work with his co-perpetrator Donald Trump.

Joining them will be heads of complicit nations, US vassal states, and authoritarian rulers such as the far-right and ultra-Zionist ruler Javier Milei of Viktor Orbán's far-right Hungary, the UAE, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Argentina.

And those named to serve in an individual capacity include some of the most notorious figures in modern history.

These include the unindicted Iraq War criminal and long-time close ally of the Israeli regime, Tony Blair; neoconservative extremist and Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Zionist billionaire Steve Witkoff, who serves as Trump's main operative in West Asia; Trump's son-in-law and close family friend of Netanyahu, Jared Kushner; Yakir Gabay, an Israeli billionaire close to the regime who was part of an organized effort to bribe officials in New York to harass students protesting the Israeli regime's abuses in Gaza; as well as a mixed group of former US and UN officials close to the Israeli regime.

• The Toxic Fruit of Cowardice

As I have written elsewhere, the Security Council resolution upon which Trump is basing his arrogant imperialist project was entirely illegal and ultra vires, as it violated several peremptory norms of international law (jus cogens) and obligations erga omnes, as well as the terms of the UN Charter. Clearly, the Council had no legal authority to pass such a resolution. But it was also an act of unprecedented folly on the part of the other 14 members of the UN Security Council.

It is not yet too late to stop this if the people of the world raise their voices for justice and demand that their governments refuse to cooperate with the ‘Board of Peace’ and Trump's other nefarious projects.

The cowardice and subservience to empire by those 14 ambassadors have now unleashed a dangerous force that threatens to prolong and reward the genocide in Palestine, further destabilize West Asia and then other regions of the world, inflict a major (perhaps fatal) blow to the already weakened structure of international law, and accelerate the dangerous decline of the United Nations.

• The Path Forward

It is not yet too late to stop this if the people of the world raise their voices for justice and demand that their governments refuse to cooperate with the ‘Board of Peace’ and Trump's other nefarious projects. A special session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) should be convened to pass a resolution voiding UNSC Resolution 2803 and mitigating its effects. Furthermore, a request for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the illegality of the resolution's main provisions should be sought, measures should be taken to hold the Israeli regime accountable, and efforts should be mobilized for the protection of the Palestinian people.

In the meantime, let no one forget the self-evident truth that the occupation of Palestine is entirely illegal under international law, that Israel and the US are committing genocide in Gaza, and that both the occupation and the genocide violate the supreme norms of international law (jus cogens & erga omnes). Therefore, no colonial decree by Trump, no ultra vires resolution by the Security Council, and no agreement concerning the occupied Palestinian authority can legitimize these acts or any structure or initiative that strengthens them.

It is equally clear that Trump's Peace Board is structurally and functionally an extension of the illegal occupation, led by one co-perpetrator of genocide with the official participation of another. Therefore, any state or individual participating in this illegal body will be an accessory to the grave international crimes of the US-Israel alliance, for which they must and will be held accountable.

And let us also recall that, in terms of international law, the Palestinian people have the right to resist foreign occupation, colonial domination, and the apartheid regime imposed upon them. And, people around the world have the legal right and moral duty to stand with the Palestinian people in this struggle.

The world is watching who joins the struggle for the freedom of the Palestinian people, and who joins their oppressors on the colonial Peace Board.