Ziggy Ojiegbe

The United Nations General Assembly has warned that rising impunity by powerful states and growing disregard for international law are pushing the global system toward instability and potential collapse.

Ad >>>

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, President of the UN General Assembly Annalena Baerbock said multilateral institutions that have long served as brokers of global trust are under unprecedented strain as conflicts multiply and respect for a rules-based order erodes.

Addressing a session titled Who Brokers Trust Now?, Baerbock warned that the world is facing more conflicts than at any point in recent history, with divisions deepening further since the start of 2026. She said this has left some UN member states reluctant to act when principled leadership is required.

“Who brokers trust?” she asked. “In ordinary times, there would be a simple answer: multilateral institutions like the United Nations. But these are not ordinary times.”

Baerbock said voices that once strongly defended the three pillars of the UN Charter—peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights—are increasingly falling silent as those principles come under attack.

“The UN is not only under pressure,” she said. “It is under outright attack.”

She warned that trust in the international system cannot survive without truth and shared facts, both of which she said are being deliberately undermined through disinformation. Quoting Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, Baerbock said: “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust.”

Falsehoods, she added, are often deployed intentionally to weaponize misinformation, while diplomatic silence in the face of obvious lies only deepens mistrust.

“We do not negotiate truths and facts,” she said. “We use them to negotiate, to broker trust.”

Baerbock also highlighted the growing risks posed by artificial intelligence. While acknowledging AI’s potential benefits, she warned that it is increasingly being used to blur the line between truth and falsehood. She pointed to deepfakes as a particular concern, noting that they are “systematically attacking women,” with the vast majority of such content being pornographic and targeting women.

Beyond truth, Baerbock stressed that trust is impossible without common rules. Respect for international law, she said, is not naïve idealism but enlightened self-interest.

“Trust is built on rules,” she said, comparing the global system to markets and competitive sports, where predictability and fairness are essential. “Why would you put your money into a business if the competition rules are totally unpredictable?”

Reflecting on the founding of the United Nations 80 years ago, Baerbock said global leaders chose cooperation after witnessing the catastrophic consequences of a lawless international order. The UN Charter, she said, remains “the world’s common life insurance,” much like a rules-based economic system underpins global trade and investment.

She concluded by calling for a broad, cross-regional alliance—spanning governments, businesses, and civil society—to defend the international order and uphold shared principles, even when doing so carries political or economic costs.

“Trust is brokered by those who hold up the common rules and principles, even when it is hard,” she said. “By those who act when action is required, and by those who speak the truth when silence or distortion would be easier.”

The central challenge, Baerbock warned, is whether today’s leaders can summon the same courage and conviction as those who built the post-war international system.

“The founders of the United Nations understood what the alternative would mean,” she said. “In a world where might makes right, there can be only one outcome: chaos and war.”