Other reservations expressed by many governments are primarily directed at the structure of the Council. Trump presides. It decides on invitations to membership, has the right of veto and can create or change sub-committees. An executive committee – including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and World Bank President Ajay Banga – implements the strategic guidelines.
Formally, the Council is an association of states. In fact, he is very focused on the chairman. On Deutsche Welle, conflict researcher Max Rodenbeck described the construction as “not the form of an international organization with democratic legitimacy.”
This does not create a classic multilateral body in which competencies are distributed, but rather a format in which a single political actor retains central control power. This is exactly what structurally distinguishes the Council from the United Nations. There, the Security Council bears responsibility for security and peace in the world – with several veto powers. In the “Peace Council” the final word lies with the chairman.
In the best case scenario, Trump’s “Peace Council” could build pressure on the UN in order to initiate necessary reforms at the United Nations. The US president made no secret of his view of the United Nations as useless during his speech to the UN General Assembly in September. Where he has a point: The UN Security Council has been blocking itself for many years and has recently been unable to prevent wars through diplomacy.
“The UN is on site in all crisis regions. At the same time, it is of course absolutely true that the veto blockade in the Security Council prevented decisions, especially on peace in Ukraine and, for a long time, on Gaza,” said Annalena Baerbock, President of the UN General Assembly, in an interview with t-online. “However, it would be completely naive to believe that the same veto powers in another institution would suddenly be willing to give up their special position.”
This also makes it clear why Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are turning their backs on the US President. They don’t want to submit to Trump.
