A Campaign to Address Global Economic Inequality

by Lawrence Wittner | Oct 6, 2026 | Global Justice

Although the speeches of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu dominated mass media coverage of the 81^st session of the UN General Assembly, which opened in September 2026, the event also included the announcement of a far more significant matter: a campaign to address the problem of worldwide economic inequality.

On September 24, standing in for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, told General Assembly delegates that “the promise of democracy and international cooperation wanes when we cannot demonstrate that they can address inequality and insecurity.” Thus, “together with Brazil, Norway, and Spain, South Africa calls on this Assembly to throw its weight behind the establishment” of an International Panel on Inequality (IPI). Based on the model of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPI would research inequality within and between countries and develop policies to close the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

That gap is enormous. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and other specialists have recently reported, “the richest 10 percent of adults globally receives more than half (53 percent) of the world’s income, whereas the poorest half receives 8 percent.” When it comes to wealth, that “is even more concentrated, with the richest 10 percent owning around three-quarters of global wealth while the poorest half owns just 2 percent.” And “almost two-thirds of people live in countries where inequality is rising.” In turn, this economic inequality leads to “unequal access to education, health care, housing and finance,” factors shaping “the opportunities that direct people’s lives.”

The speech at the General Assembly, as well as the specialists’ report, originated with developments within the G20, an international forum of nations with advanced and emerging economies seeking to coordinate global economic policy. In 2025, when the South African government held the presidency of the G20, it commissioned a study of global inequality by independent experts and chaired by Stiglitz. Appearing last November, the study maintained that “inequality is one of the most urgent concerns in the world today,” and that “combating it is necessary and possible.” Indeed, according to the study, the inequality emergency was on a par with the climate emergency, and an IPI, once established, would gather information on the problem and propose solutions to it.

Recently, the campaign for a global response to global economic inequality has picked up momentum. By mid-September 2026, when the UN General Assembly session was underway, more than 1,500 economists and academics from more than 100 countries had signed an open letter backing the creation of an International Panel on Inequality. Among the high-profile signatories were former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu, and numerous other prominent economists, including Thomas Piketty, Mariana Mazzucato, and Jayati Ghosh. In the letter, they maintained that “extreme concentrations of income and wealth translate into undemocratic concentrations of power, unravelling trust in our societies and polarizing our politics.”

Ghosh remarked: “India’s experience tells us everything we need to know about why an International Panel on Inequality is needed. One of the world’s fast-growing economies is also one of its most unequal and its extraordinary wealth sits alongside profound deprivation.”

Meanwhile, the IPI proposal drew important support from other quarters. At a BRICS summit during the second week in September, Brazil and South Africa put the issue on the meeting’s agenda, resulting in a final communique that called for “concrete steps” to “establish an international panel on inequality.” Later in the month, 38 former heads of state and government from the Club of Rome published an open letter urging world leaders to establish the IPI. They included Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Ireland’s Leo Varadkar, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Malawi’s Joyce Banda, and New Zealand’s Helen Clark.

This buildup culminated not only in the South African address to the General Assembly, but in a side event this September at the United Nations, to which all UN member states were invited by the governments of Brazil, Norway, South Africa, and Spain to show their support for the creation of the IPI. At the gathering, the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, delivered a passionate speech, declaring: “Greed is man-made, and therefore . . . it can be unman-made.” She was joined that day by delegations from other nations that displayed their backing for the IPI venture, including Germany, Japan, Bangladesh, Uruguay, and Mexico.

The campaigners hope to generate enough international support to get the UN General Assembly, during this session, to pass a resolution formally establishing the new panel on international inequality.

This will not be an easy task. After all, many nations are headed by officials whose priority appears to be enriching their wealthiest individuals and their giant corporations. As Sarah Colenbrander, the director of the climate and sustainability program at the London-based ODI Global, has observed: “It is hard to imagine that billionaires―and the world leaders among them or in their pockets”―would support wealth redistribution. This year’s G20 meeting, scheduled for December, will not be presided over by South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, but by America’s Donald Trump.

Even so, egalitarian forces―including social justice activists, labor unions, and progressive politicians―have excellent reasons to rally behind the establishment of a UN panel on international inequality, for it opens up the possibility of economic and social transformation on a global basis. Furthermore, as proponents of the panel realize, they possess substantial strength in the UN General Assembly, where impoverished nations are numerous and where, unlike in the UN Security Council, a majority vote cannot be vetoed by a wealthy and powerful nation.

Of course, there has been a persistent struggle between rich and poor within societies and nations over the course of human history. In this case, however, the class struggle has reached the global level, with the possibility of global action to address the scandal of vast economic inequality.

World Hunger and Starvation Have Reached a Crisis Level

by Lawrence Wittner | Aug 31, 2026 | Global Justice

Starvation is a particularly cruel and horrible way to die.  Beginning with intense hunger and pain and followed by exhaustion and mental deterioration, starvation continues with the body gradually consuming its own tissues on a downward spiral toward death.

The major safeguard against mass starvation around the globe is the World Food Program (WFP), which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its vital humanitarian work.  With hundreds of millions of people in jeopardy thanks to poverty, famines, violent conflict, and extreme weather, this UN agency distributes massive quantities of food aid―last year alone, reaching more than 100 million people facing acute hunger―thereby saving millions of lives.

But with the advent of the second Trump administration in January 2025, the World Food Program, which in 2024 received nearly half of its funding from the U.S. government, entered a period of crisis that has only deepened in the months since then.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing all U.S. foreign assistance, declaring that the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases [are] antithetical to American values.”  Within short order, the DOGE operation of multibillionaire Elon Musk terminated the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which provided the bulk of U.S. overseas humanitarian aid to impoverished nations.  Calling USAID a “criminal organization,” Musk declared that it was “time for it to die.”

Emergency food assistance, a component of U.S. foreign aid, was a key administration target.  In April 2025, the Trump administration ended funding to the WFP for food programs in 14 of the world’s most impoverished nations.  Responding to the action, the WFP warned that “this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation.”

In response to sharp public criticism of the cutbacks, some of the food aid cuts were restored.  And in June 2025, the administration suddenly gave the WFP an $800 million grant.  Although these actions brought total U.S. overseas food aid for 2025 to about $2 billion, during the final year of the Biden administration the U.S. contribution to the WFP had been $4.5 billion.

Thanks almost entirely to the shift in U.S. policy, the WFP experienced a 40 percent drop in funding during 2025.

The results of the financial cutbacks were horrific.  In Kenya, where the Trump administration abruptly ended all U.S. funding for WFP operations, there resided about 720,000 refugees, among the most vulnerable people on earth.  Although aid workers and local U.S. officials repeatedly appealed for a renewal of U.S. food assistance, none was forthcoming.  As a result, a ProPublica study reported, the refugees “began to starve, and many―mostly children―died because their malnourished bodies couldn’t fight off infections.”  In these circumstances, “mothers had to choose which of their kids to feed.  Young men took to the streets in protests, some of which devolved into violent riots.  Pregnant women with life-threatening anemia were so desperate for calories that they ate mud.” 

Elsewhere, too, the situation grew increasingly desperate.  In numerous impoverished nations where special packets of food paste had been distributed to 9.3 million children on the brink of starvation, the packets virtually disappeared.  In one region of Nigeria alone, 150 clinics, operated by the WFP and providing nutrition treatment for 300,000 children below the age of two, shut down in July 2025.

Not surprisingly, acute food insecurity rose among people around the world, including an estimated 118 million children.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration pressed for further cuts in overseas U.S. food aid.  Trump’s FY 2026 budget proposal, advanced in May 2025, called for the elimination of two long-established U.S. ventures partially channeled through the WFP—the Food for Peace program and the McGovern-Dole child nutrition program.  But, as things turned out, Republican legislators with agricultural constituencies blocked the move.  Anxious to keep farmers happy by providing a market for their excess commodities distributed through the programs, they joined Democrats in re-enacting both of them, though with a 23 percent cut in funding.   

The Trump administration, however, remains determined to destroy what’s left of the existing U.S. government overseas food assistance program.  In April 2026, its FY 2027 budget proposal called for the total elimination of the Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole programs.  For the first time since the establishment of the World Food Program in 1961, no U.S. funding has been earmarked for that UN agency.

Admittedly, the dumping of surplus agricultural commodities from wealthy nations, especially when such commodity production is subsidized by their governments, can worsen food insecurity in impoverished nations by undermining their local agriculture.  Although this situation could be remedied by subsidizing the food production of small farmers in impoverished lands, the Trump administration seems unlikely to do so.

Instead, this August, probably to deflect public criticism of the collapse of humanitarian assistance and to win favor with Trump’s religious base, the administration announced a new initiative for distribution of overseas humanitarian aid under the direction of Christian organizations.  Compared to the U.S. government’s humanitarian aid of the past (e.g., $8 billion in 2024), the total funding was minuscule:  $2 billion over five years.  Moreover, although the new program would apparently provide some food assistance, it wouldn’t amount to much, as nearly three-quarters of the total funding was allocated for healthcare.

Naturally, thanks to the collapse of traditional U.S. food assistance policy, world hunger and starvation have soared.  According to the WFP, “a staggering 266 million people are . . . facing crisis levels of hunger or worse” in 2026.  Meanwhile, “severe funding shortfalls are forcing WFP to scale back assistance,” and “lost lives . . . will be the price to pay.”

Clearly, a new direction is needed to avert massive human suffering and death.  In the immediate future, other wealthy nations could step up to fill the funding gap left by the Trump administration.  Longer term, the United Nations and its agencies could be provided with an independent source of income, thereby ending their dependence on the whims of individual nations―especially those nations directed by people so fantastically wealthy that they lack any comprehension of hunger and its effects.

Until remedial action is taken, however, world hunger and starvation will continue as a disgrace to humanity.

International Law Needs International Enforcement

by Lawrence Wittner | Mar 13, 2026 | Global Justice

The U.S. military attack upon Iran is but the latest indication that the system of international law―which provides guidelines for the behavior of nations in world affairs―is crumbling.

In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after thousands of years of violent international conflict, efforts to establish global norms for nations in connection with war, diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights accelerated.  These efforts resulted in the founding of the United Nations (which develops, codifies, and enforces international law), the International Court of Justice (which settles legal disputes among nations and provides advisory opinions on legal questions), and the International Criminal Court (which investigates and tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community).

Of course, the current U.S. military attack on Iran flies in the face of the UN Charter, which, in Article 2, states that “all Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means” and that they “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”  Furthermore, contemptuous of the United Nations, Trump has withdrawn the U.S. government from dozens of UN agencies and blocked the U.S. government’s payment of billions of dollars in mandatory dues to the world organization.

Other nations are also clearly out of line with international law.  The Russian government’s over four years of war and occupation of Ukrainian territory are flagrant violations of the UN Charter, as attested to by a ruling of the International Court of Justice and numerous overwhelming condemnations by the UN General Assembly.  The Israeli government is also a prominent transgressor, having joined the U.S. military assault on Iran and conducted an illegal occupation of conquered Palestinian territory for decades while violating international humanitarian law in its treatment of the civilian population.

Disgusted by the ability of these and other nations to act with impunity, Majed al-Ansari, Qatar’s foreign policy advisor, remarked bitterly in 2025:  “We are moving into a system where anybody can do whatever they like. . . .  As long as you have the ability to wreak havoc, you can do it because no one will hold you accountable.”

This lack of accountability is striking.  Within nations, there is usually effective enforcement of law.  But, on the global level, law enforcement is weak, indeed.  When the International Criminal Court announced warrants for the arrests of Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes, a former Russian president threatened the judges with a hypersonic missile attack and the U.S. government imposed heavy sanctions on the judges.  Meanwhile, Putin and Netanyahu remain at large.

Scornful of international law, some national officials openly champion a return to the traditional might-makes-right conduct of international affairs.  “You can talk all you want about international niceties,” said Stephen Miller, Trump’s influential White House aide, “but we live in . . . the real world . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by power.  These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Naturally, officials of nations that are militarily powerful find a power politics approach appealing, as do people with militarist and nationalist views.  Trump recently announced: “I don’t need international law.”

Conversely, officials of less powerful nations are dismayed by the resurrection of a might-makes-right standard, as are people with peace-oriented and internationalist views.  They argue that what the world needs is not the abandonment of international law, but its more effective enforcement.  Furthermore, they contend that a return to great power imperialism in a world bristling with modern weapons, including nuclear weapons, is a recipe for catastrophe.

But if effective enforcement of international law is preferable to a power politics approach to world affairs, can that effective enforcement be attained?

There are certainly feasible, small-scale actions along these lines that could be taken.  One is to increase the number of nations that accept compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.  Currently, only 75 nations of the 193 UN member states do so.  Another is to increase the number of nations that are parties to the statute of the International Criminal Court.  The current number is 125, and does not include the United States, Russia, China, and Israel. 

Even the use of the veto in the UN Security Council―employed most frequently by the U.S. and Russian governments―could be limited to some degree.  One way is to simply enforce Article 27 in the UN Charter providing that a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting on that dispute.  Another―championed by France and Mexico―is to exclude the veto in situations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Also, of course, deadbeat nations could be pressured into paying their UN dues―for example, by denying them their vote in the UN General Assembly.

More thoroughgoing action would be difficult to secure, but not impossible.  Perhaps the leading obstacle to a substantial strengthening of the United Nations and the international law it seeks to develop and enforce is the provision in the UN Charter that all five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France) must agree to any change in the Charter.  Nevertheless, the Charter also provides that a two-thirds vote by the General Assembly and by any nine members of the Security Council can produce a Charter review conference. Consequently, there is now a significant campaign underway to call for one.  And, if such a meeting is held, perhaps after the current crop of aging, reactionary officials has passed from the scene, who really knows what will occur?

Admittedly, the prospects aren’t good for halting the return of nations to their traditional practices of war and imperialism.

Even so, if people can create the scientific and technological marvels of the modern world, they might also be capable of developing ways to stop killing one another.