UN chief Antonio Guterres blames Security Council paralysis
Can the United Nations function without the Security Council?
The question is very serious.
Even more so when it is the Secretary General of the UN who asks it.
From Geneva, during the Human Rights Council, Mr. Guterres denounced the inaction of the supreme body of the United Nations, supposed to guarantee world peace but incapable, in fact, of agreeing on a cease-fire. fire in Gaza.
Enough to raise the question of its future.
The Secretary General of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, February 26, 2024. AP - Salvatore Di Nolfi
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With our correspondent in Geneva,
Jérémie Lanche
Antonio Guterres
starts from an observation.
After years of relative stability, the world has become multipolar, governed not by a handful of states, but by several forces.
This is not a bad thing in itself, says the UN boss, but it becomes so when the institutions of multilateralism no longer work.
This is the case of the Security Council.
His inability to make strong decisions on Ukraine and especially
Gaza
has undermined his authority – perhaps fatally, even says Antonio Guterres.
“
Brain death corresponds to a person who is alive, but who is not capable of doing anything.
If the Security Council, one day, demonstrated that it would not be capable of doing anything, then it would be very close to this clinical condition
,” said the Secretary General of the United Nations, during the 55th session of the Human Rights Council.
The conditional is still appropriate.
But never before has a UN Secretary General had such harsh words against the most powerful organ of the United Nations.
The coming weeks will tell whether the Council will reach a compromise on Gaza, while an Israeli offensive in Rafah would signify the end of humanitarian aid in the Palestinian enclave, warned the head of the United Nations.
Even if the Security Council reaches agreement, it will not be able to avoid a profound reform of its mode of operation.
Also read: Gaza and the war in Ukraine on the table of the UN Human Rights Council
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