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Meeting of delegates to approve the Charter of the United Nations, San Francisco, 1945.

Origins of the UN: The US and USSR

The genesis of the United Nations came from the nations united as Allies against the Axis powers, but who really pushed the institution into being?
by Stephen Wertheim, Matthew Wills, Geoffrey Roberts via JSTOR Daily on February 9, 2025
Photo contact sheet from Ronald Reagan speech on Nicaragua in 1986.
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Letting the World Scream

The U.S., Nicaragua, and the International Court of Justice in the 1980s.
by Sean T. Byrnes via HNN on November 26, 2024
Palestinians gather around a statue of Nelson Mandela after South Africa files a landmark case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, Ramallah, Jan. 10, 2024.

1948: Israel, South Africa, and the Question of Genocide

The UN’s failure to dismantle the colonial order foreclosed the application of the Genocide Convention to Israel, South Africa, and the United States.
by Robin D. G. Kelley via Hammer & Hope on March 19, 2024
The cover of the United Nations FAO-Unesco Soil Map of the World, 1974.

The Earth for Man

Redistributing land was once central to global development efforts—and it should be today.
by Jo Guldi via Boston Review on May 3, 2023
Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, president of the U.N. Security Council for February and permanent representative of the Russian Federation, at the U.N. headquarters on Feb. 28.

The ‘Rules-Based International Order’ Doesn’t Constrain Russia — or the United States

American pundits say Putin is undermining the international order. But the ability of great powers to ignore the rules is a lamentable part of the system.
by Samuel Moyn via Washington Post on March 1, 2022
Paul Robeson and other members of the Civil Rights Congress submit a report on police brutality and systemic racism against Black people, accusing the U.S. of genocide, to the United Nations.

70 Years Ago Black Activists Accused the U.S. of Genocide. They Should Have Been Taken Seriously.

The charges, while provocative, offer a framework to reckon with systemic racial injustice — past and present.
by Alex Hinton via Politico Magazine on December 26, 2021

Mrs. Roosevelt's Revolution

In the wake of the Second World War, Eleanor Roosevelt seized the moment and gave lasting life to the idea of universal human rights.
by Brian Urquhart via New York Review of Books on April 26, 2001
South Korean soldiers walking through a trench of dead bodies.

The Moral Distortions of the Official Korean War Narrative

June 25 marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. But the truth is that the US was a willing partner in mass murder across the peninsula.
by Grace M. Cho via The Nation on June 24, 2025
Bars evoking the border wall superimposed on a photo of a river.

The New Politics Of Territorial Expansion

“Never again” and the “responsibility to protect” now license forcible territorial annexation.
by Nils Gilman, Dirk Moses, Zachariah Mampilly via Noema on May 29, 2025
Picture of Yalta revealed behind torn paper

The Post-World War II System Was Always Fragile

Franklin Roosevelt warned that even in peacetime, America’s obligations to the world would continue.
by Julian E. Zelizer via Foreign Policy on May 12, 2025
French Gen. Jean de Rochambeau and American Gen. George Washington giving the last orders in October 1781 for the battle at Yorktown.

How Allies Have Helped the US Gain Independence, Defend Freedom and Keep the Peace

Why should a country want or need allies? President Donald Trump and his followers seem to disdain the idea. So did George Washington.
by Donald Heflin via The Conversation on February 20, 2025
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House.

Trump’s Gaza Plan May Mark the End of the Postwar Order

Although the West has long tolerated forced expulsions when convenient, its postwar framework at least nominally rejected them. Now the US is endorsing it.
by Dirk Moses via Jacobin on February 16, 2025
A Guatemalan police officer standing in front of a memorial to Guatemalan civilians murdered during the country's civil war that depicts their photographs.

By Rejecting Evidence of Genocide in Gaza, the US Is Following a Familiar Pattern

For decades, Washington has denied, downplayed and rationalized atrocities by its allies.
by Stephen Zunes via New Lines on February 14, 2025

How the U.S. Gamed the Law of the Sea

It made itself bigger.
by Jack Truesdale via The Atlantic on January 25, 2025
Protestors at Oxford University, with one holding a sign that reads "End Racism Now."

What Is Decolonisation?

There’s more talk of decolonisation than ever, while true independence for former colonies has faded from view. Why?
by Lydia Walker via Aeon on November 21, 2024
U.S. Ambassador Daniel Moynihan discusses violence in the Middle East at the U.N. Security Council
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Changing Views on Israel Isolating the U.S. at the U.N.

Americans have been isolated at the U.N. on Israel for a half century — but that used to prompt fierce debate.
by Sean T. Byrnes via Made By History on January 18, 2024
Two protestors holding a Palestinian flag with "stop genocide" written on it, surrounded by red handprints.

The War in Gaza Has Exposed the Limits of the Word “Genocide”

The term is 80 years old. Everyone is still fighting over its meaning.
by David Faris via Slate on December 13, 2023
The shrouded bodies of people killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

“Genocide” Is the Wrong Word

We reach for the term when we want to condemn the worst crimes, but the UN’s Genocide Convention excuses more perpetrators of mass murder than it condemns.
by James Robins via The New Republic on November 21, 2023
Drawing of Patrice Lumumba with Congolese people in the background.

The Real Story Behind Patrice Lumumba’s Assassination

A new book sorts through the fate of the leader of the fight for Congolese independence.
by Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on October 30, 2023
Harry Truman, left, holds a copy of the Torah presented to him by Israeli leader Chaim Weizmann in May 1948.

How A U.S. President Known to Disparage Jews Became Godfather of Israel

Harry Truman used antisemitic slurs in private. But his surprise decision 75 years ago to recognize Israel, launching a fierce alliance, was a long time coming.
by Gordon F. Sander via Retropolis on May 13, 2023
W. E. B. Du Bois, 1958

Another Side of W.E.B. Du Bois

A conversation on Du Bois' perspective on empire and democracy, the development of his anti-imperial thought, and his vision for transnational solidarity.
by Adom Getachew, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Jennifer Pitts via The Nation on May 10, 2023
Five globes shaped like human faces, connected by threads.

It’s Time to Rethink the Idea of the “Indigenous”

Many groups who identify as Indigenous don’t claim to be first peoples; many who came first don’t claim to be Indigenous. Can the idea escape its colonial past?
by Manvir Singh via The New Yorker on February 20, 2023
Black and white photograph of crowd in China holding pictures of Mao Zedong in celebration.

U.S. Relations With China 1949–2022

U.S.-China relations have evolved from tense standoffs to a complex mix of intensifying diplomacy, growing international rivalry, and increasingly intertwined economies.
via Council On Foreign Relations on May 26, 2022
Shirley Temple Black speaking at the 1969 U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Shirley Temple Black's Remarkable Second Act as a Diplomat

An unpublished memoir reveals how the world’s most famous child actress became a star of the environmental movement.
by Claudia Kalb via Smithsonian on May 23, 2022
Photograph of woman interrogated by soldier at Korean prisoner-of-war camp

A Permanent Battle

A new history draws on recently declassified archives to illustrate how the Korean War was an intimate civil conflict, not just a proxy battle between superpowers.
by E. Tammy Kim via New York Review of Books on May 5, 2022
Oil refinery

How Polluting Industries Mobilized to Block Climate Action

Since its inception, the IPCC itself has been the target of corporate obstructionism.
by Amy Westervelt via The Intercept on April 12, 2022
Illustration of an angel symbolizing peace with her hand on the shoulder of a man symbolizing war, titled "The Messenger"
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Ukraine Shows We Need to Learn the History of Peace Movements to Break The Habit of War

When the war in Ukraine finally ends, will we take peace organizations and peace movements more seriously?
by Charles F. Howlett via HNN on March 13, 2022
Afghan refugees at Dulles Airport

The Status of Refugees

Seventy years after the UN Refugee Convention, the United States should refresh its commitment to displaced people.
by Linda K. Kerber via Dissent on August 25, 2021
A man standing infront of a police line

The ‘Global Policeman’ Is Not Exempt From Justice

Confronting the violence of U.S. policing requires an international perspective.
by David Helps via Foreign Policy on August 13, 2021
Colorful vaccination graphic

Long, Strange TRIPS: The Grubby History of How Vaccines Became Intellectual Property

Not long ago, life-saving medical know-how was viewed as belonging to everyone. What happened?
by Alexander Zaitchik via The New Republic on June 1, 2021
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