EDITORIAL: Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (HR), stated during the annual HR Council’s opening address that the international system is in an upheaval, with human rights being suffocated in a world increasingly dominated by authoritarians.
The HR High Commissioner is not an elected position but a selected one with qualified applicants short-listed by the Council, appointed by the Secretary General, and approved by the General Assembly with “due regard to geographical rotation for a fixed term of four years,” though historically all UN appointments are not without successful negotiations between countries that are more equal than others in the parlance of George Orville’s Animal Farm. Be that as it may, Turk is a lawyer, an Austrian national, naturally partial to a narrative premised on his education and experience.
One cannot challenge Turk’s contention that the international system is in an upheaval. While the word upheaval does not have a positive connotation yet there are many around the world, including in his home country, who would disagree with him, given that the unipolar international system’s persistent interference, through invasive actions in many countries against their national aspirations, is in the process of being transformed into a multipolar world – a world that is increasingly challenging these “invasions” that have led to an influx of economic migrants who are a major election manifesto agenda of far-right parties.
The status-quo parties, particularly in France and Germany, have refused to give space in government to far-right parties who won substantial number of seats in recent elections accusing them of odious Hitleresque policy of supremacy of the white race.
Today, the manifesto of the far-right parties in Europe is on anti-migration policies in acknowledgement of the high unemployment levels of their own nationals in their countries and the German AfD manifesto proposed the war of the Ukraine and the restoration of the gas pipeline with Russia that was blown up earlier and which, analysts are agreed, is the major cause of the country’s de-industrialisation.
Donald Trump’s insistence to negotiate with the Russians may well be due to his refusal to take responsibility for an imminent Ukrainian defeat – the present on-the-ground situation that the Biden administration and the Europeans, with the continued support from Western mainstream media, refuse to accept.
However, the seeds of the war did not begin in 2014 when Russian forces entered Crimea but before when the US decided to cross the stated Russian red line - not to park NATO troops and weaponry on its border with Ukraine - a red line that the then US Ambassador to Russia, Burns (CIA chief during the Biden era), categorically warned his capital about.
The Istanbul agreement between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 that the two had agreed on was torpedoed by the Biden administration and the then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson which led to loss of Russian and Ukrainian lives on the battle field and loss of territory by Ukraine.
The US mainstream media continues to assail Trump and his executive orders but without being an apologist for Trump it is critical to acknowledge that the huge number of executive orders signed almost daily since he took oath as the President coupled with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashing the numbers serving in government to enhance efficiency is an attempt to take the power back from the deep state by the executive branch of government.
Needless to add, the US academia is accusing the deep state of interference in affairs of other countries that leaves devastation in its wake - Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria — which led to the massive rise in the number of economic migrants to Europe.
These are extremely challenging times and would need to steer carefully in the emerging seismic shift in global politics with far-reaching economic consequences. As a country we have suffered tremendously due to the influx of over 3 million Afghan refugees at one time and are currently facing increasing terror attacks in the country.
Today the foreign policy thrust appears to be to sign on billions of dollars worth of memoranda of understanding that are not contractual obligations. Pakistan is also facilitating visas for foreigners to encourage foreign investment, which at present is less than 2 billion dollars per annum, and without any element of reciprocity. It is time to take stock of the implications of the paradigm shift and determine the best way forward.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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