A World My Grandchildren Will Inherit
by David Palethorpe
I’m coming up to being 77 years of age.
If I am fortunate, I may have another ten years left and the world being shaped today will not belong to me—it will belong to my children and grandchildren.
That is why I cannot stay silent while international law collapses in front of us.
The United Nations was created to restrain power.
Instead, it has become an institution where power restrains law.
Russia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States veto accountability for their own actions.
Israel continues its destruction of Gaza with international diplomatic protection and support from the USA.
The UN condemns, but nothing changes.
When the United States forcibly removed the Venezuelan president through military action, killing civilians in the process, the word “capture” was used to soften what was plainly an act of kidnapping.
The United Kingdom’s refusal to condemn this behaviour speaks volumes.
Silence, in moments like this, is not neutral—it is enabling.
I am painfully aware of Britain’s own history of empire and violence.
We are not innocent.
But history should teach humility, not repetition.
There are millions of ordinary people—in the USA, in the UK, across the world—who are appalled by what their governments are doing in their name.
Yet there are also those who celebrate cruelty and domination.
That is perhaps the most frightening part.
If international law only applies to the weak, then it is not law at all.
Perhaps the world now needs a new international system, built by nations willing to submit themselves to the same rules they demand of others.
If we fail to do this, I fear that the world my grandchildren inherit will be one where force has fully replaced law—and inhumanity replaces humanity.
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