Global Dialogues

When I think of moral authority in today’s world, I don’t think of the institutions that claim to hold it. I think of the people and movements who live it, often without recognition or power. The world we live in today is marked by deep injustice, widening inequality, and a failure of global leadership to respond with consistency, compassion, or accountability. Traditional sources of moral authority such as international institutions, Western governments, even academic and legal elites, are increasingly viewed with justified skepticism. This is especially true for those of us from the Global South who witness daily how these structures prioritize some lives over others.

Palestine is a painful and urgent example of this failure. For decades, Palestinians have lived under illegal occupation, displacement, and apartheid conditions. International law is clear about these violations, and countless resolutions have affirmed Palestinian rights. Yet, the global response from powerful Western nations has been silence, deflection, or outright complicity. The West’s unwavering support for Israel, despite the overwhelming evidence of human rights abuses, exposes the moral bankruptcy of a system that selectively applies its principles. It is in moments like this that I ask: if international law and human rights are not universal, then what do they mean at all?

We see the same double standards in the climate crisis. The Global South bears the brunt of climate disasters such as floods, droughts, and resource scarcity, despite having contributed the least to global emissions. However, when Global South countries demand climate reparations or support for a just transition, they are met with empty promises or loans disguised as aid. Meanwhile, Western corporations continue to extract resources, pollute local ecosystems, and profit from the exploitation of land and labor, often in former colonies. The cycle of environmental and economic injustice is ongoing, and moral accountability is absent.

Worse still, these injustices are often underpinned by racialized narratives that depict the Global South as unstable, corrupt, or incapable of self-determination. These narratives not only strip people of dignity but also allow powerful nations to justify their inaction or interference. The racism embedded in global discourse reinforces a hierarchy of whose suffering matters and whose does not.

In this reality, I don’t believe moral authority resides in power. It resides in resistance. It resides in the voices and actions of people who speak out, even when the world refuses to listen. It’s in the climate activists in Kenya, the families in Gaza, the students organizing walkouts, the indigenous communities defending their land. It’s in the youth who are demanding a different world, one built not on domination, but on shared humanity.

I believe moral authority now lives in these acts of courage and solidarity, and in spaces like the Georgetown Global Dialogues, where we come together to ask hard questions, listen across borders, and imagine justice differently. In a world that often chooses silence, moral authority belongs to those who refuse to be quiet.

Jaelene Iyman (SFS'26) is a junior in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Qatar.