Craig Mokhiber
Mondoweiss / January 22, 2026
Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” is the result of the world bowing before the global rampage of the US-Israel Axis. Once again, the Palestinian people are being offered as sacrifices, and along with them, the entire global system of international law.
Trembling and genuflecting before the global rampage of the US-Israel Axis, a cowardly world has, once again, offered up the Palestinian people for sacrifice, and, with them, the global system of international law itself.
I have written previously about the document of global surrender, codified in notorious (and blatantly unlawful) UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and about Trump’s outrageous imperial dictates upon which that resolution was based.
But the latest outrage, declared by the empire in the form of an autocratic “Charter of the Board of Peace,” threatens not only the survival of the indigenous Palestinian people, but, in its expansive and unqualified language that includes no limits of territorial jurisdiction, that of the entire world.
An imperial charter
Conceived as a Trump-headed “international organization,” the body is to have “international legal personality,” “legal capacity,” and international “privileges and immunities.”
In a barely veiled preambular swipe at established international institutions like the United Nations, the imperial Charter opens with a call to “depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed” before declaring itself in its first article to be empowered to act in any “areas affected or threatened by conflict.”
In other words, Trump’s goal is to replace the law-based UN with an imperial mechanism, the imperial reach of this unaccountable, rogue entity is to be global, and its impunity is to be effectively guaranteed.
The ultimately autocratic nature of the new entity is made clear throughout the Charter, with most powers vested not in any accountable, intergovernmental, collaborative, or democratic mechanism, nor even in any single state, but rather in the person of Donald Trump himself.
As such, Trump is explicitly empowered to serve both as the Chair and as the representative of the United States on the Board “subject only to the provisions of [the Charter],” to solely determine the members of the Board, to approve any alternates, to renew the terms of members, to remove members (unless a 2/3 vote of the crony-packed Board decides they should stay), to decide the agenda of the Board, to convene extraordinary meetings, to personally issue “resolutions or other directives,” and to approve all decisions of the Board.
Trump will also have “exclusive authority” to create, modify, and dissolve subsidiary bodies, to establish subcommittees and to personally set their mandate, structure, and rules, to select, appoint, and remove members of the Executive Board of the Board of Peace (at his sole discretion), to veto any decisions of the Executive Board, and to call additional meetings of the Executive Board.
He is to remain as the Chair of the Board of Peace unless he resigns voluntarily or becomes incapacitated, is empowered to designate his own successor as Chair, and to be the final authority on “meaning, interpretations, and application” of the Charter. And only he can approve any amendments to the Charter.
The Charter is, in sum, an authoritarian dream for Trump, and an Orwellian nightmare for the rest of the world.
A rogue’s gallery of members
The Board’s Charter, which permits “no reservations,” provides for members to be appointed at the head of state level by Trump himself to renewable three-year terms. Members that contribute US$ 1 Billion “in cash” will not be subject to the three-year limit.
According to its Charter, the Board can be constituted with only three members (the US plus two others). The full list of countries and individuals is to be announced by Trump on Thursday. But he has already lined up a large rogue’s gallery of quislings, complicit regimes, corrupt financial actors, and individual war criminals.
Most damning of all, of course, is the fact that, in the midst of the Israel-US genocide in Palestine, the two perpetrators are to head the Board and serve as one of its members, respectively, even as the Board is expected to impose its colonial control of Gaza.
Benjamin Netranyahu, head of the genocidal Israeli apartheid regime and a fugitive from justice indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Palestine, has already accepted to serve with his co-perpetrator, Donald Trump.
With them are to be the heads of complicit countries, US vassal states, and authoritarian regimes like Victor Orban’s far-right Hungary, the UAE, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Argentina’s far-right and ultra-Zionist ruler Javier Milei, among others.
And individuals already named to serve in their personal capacity include some of the most notorious figures in modern history.
Unindicted Iraq war criminal and long-time close collaborator with the Israeli regime Tony Blair. Neocon extremist and Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Zionist billionaire Steve Witkoff, who serves as Trump’s point person in Western Asia. Trump’s son-in-law and close family friend of Netanyahu Jared Kushner. Yakir Gabay, an Israeli billionaire who is close to the regime and who was part of an organized effort in New York to bribe officials to persecute students protesting Israeli regime abuses in Gaza, as well as a hodge-podge of former US and UN officials who are close to Israeli regime.
The poison fruits of cowardice
As I have written elsewhere, the Security Council resolution upon which Trump is basing his arrogant imperial project was entirely unlawful and ultra vires, as it breached several jus cogens and erga omnes rules of international law, as well as the terms of the UN Charter itself. Clearly, the Council had no legal authority to pass such a resolution. But it was also an act of unprecedented foolishness on the part of the other 14 members of the UN Security Council.
The cowardice and obsequious deference to empire of those 14 ambassadors has now unleashed a dangerous force that threatens to prolong and reward genocide in Palestine, further destabilize first Western Asia and then other regions of the world, inflict a massive (perhaps fatal) blow to the already battered and beleaguered framework of international law, and hasten the dangerous downward spiral of the United Nations.
A way forward
It is not too late to stop this, if the people of the world will raise a righteous cry for justice and demand that their governments refuse to cooperate with the Board of Peace and Trump’s other nefarious projects, convene a special session of the UNGA to adopt a resolution to reject and mitigate the effects of UNSC resolution 2803, call for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of key provisions of that resolution, adopt measures to hold the Israeli regime accountable, and mobilize protection for the Palestinian people.
In the meantime, let no one forget the axiomatic truth that the occupation of Palestine is entirely unlawful under international law, that Israel and the US are perpetrating genocide in Gaza, and that both the occupation and the genocide breach the highest (“jus cogens & erga omnes”) rules of international law. As such, no colonial edict by Trump, no ultra vires resolution of the Security Council, and no agreement by the occupied Palestinian Authority can legalize these acts or any structures or initiatives that reinforce them.
Equally clear is that the Trump “Board of Peace” is structurally and functionally an extension of the illegal occupation and is led by one of the genocide co-perpetrators with the authoritative participation of the other. As such, any state or individual that participates in this unlawful body is complicit in the grave international crimes of the U.S.-Israel Axis, for which they could and should be held accountable.
And let us recall as well, that, as a matter of international law, the Palestinian people have a right to resist the foreign occupation, colonial domination, and racist regime to which they are subjected, and people around the world have the legal right and the moral duty to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in this struggle.
The world is watching to see who joins the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, and who joins their oppressors in the colonial “Board of Peace.”
Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and former senior United Nations Official; he left the UN in October of 2023, penning a widely read letter that warned of genocide in Gaza, criticized the international response and called for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on equality, human rights and international law
