UN Chief Says the World Is in a New Period Marked by the Highest Main Energy Competitors in A long time

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres advised the world’s nations Thursday that the post-Chilly Warfare interval is over and the world is shifting towards a brand new multipolar period already marked by the best degree of geopolitical tensions and main energy competitors in a long time.

He warned that these divisions are undermining the cornerstone of the United Nations – having all nations work collectively to resolve international challenges.

The U.N. chief ticked off a bunch of challenges — extra complicated and lethal conflicts, re-emerging considerations about potential nuclear struggle, rising inequalities inside and between nations, widespread terrorism, the local weather emergency, mounting mistrust in public establishments, and human rights below assault globally “together with a pernicious pushback in opposition to girls’s rights.”

The secretary-general mentioned Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has made it much more troublesome to handle these challenges. And with out naming Russia he clearly criticized it, saying if each nation fulfilled its obligations below the U.N. Constitution — which embody respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations – “the fitting to peace can be assured.”

Guterres offered his grim view of the world in a coverage paper outlining his “New Agenda for Peace” to diplomats from the U.N.’s 193 member states. It’s the U.N.’s try to handle the brand new threats, he mentioned.

The U.N. chief confused the important significance of preserving multilateralism, saying: “In our fractured, troubled world, it’s incumbent upon states to protect our common establishment, wherein they’ve a stake.”

“The time to behave isn’t when the divisions and fractures have engulfed us,” he mentioned. “The time to behave is now.”

The unique Agenda for Peace was offered by then U.N. secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1992 following the break-up of the Soviet Union and the top of its Chilly Warfare with the US. It welcomed the top of “hostility and mistrust” between the superpowers and outlined how the U.N. may step up its work on preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the Worldwide Disaster Group, mentioned this imaginative and prescient “of an activist, interventionist U.N.” has been its underlying coverage for the previous three a long time. However he mentioned Guterres’ “New Agenda for Peace” stresses that “the driving drive for a brand new multilateralism should be diplomacy.”

In an evaluation of the brand new agenda, Gowan mentioned it focuses on what member nations have to do, and on multilateral cooperation in an more and more fragmented and unequal world “wherein Guterres believes that the U.N. should adapt to facilitating worldwide cooperation, not intention to guide it.”

One of many key areas this proposed new method is obvious is within the secretary-general’s views on the U.N.’s far-flung peacekeeping operations, particularly following the Safety Council’s vote on June 30 to right away finish its greater than 15,000-strong mission in Mali as demanded by the nation’s army junta which has introduced in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to assist struggle an Islamic insurgency.

Guterres advised diplomats that whereas peacekeepers have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, “longstanding unresolved conflicts, pushed by complicated home, geopolitical and transnational components, and a persistent mismatch between mandates and assets, have uncovered its limitations.” Put bluntly, he mentioned, “peacekeeping operations can’t succeed when there isn’t any peace to maintain.”

His proposed peace agenda urges nations to maneuver towards “nimble, adaptable” peacekeeping fashions with exit methods, and to help “peace enforcement motion by regional and sub-regional organizations,” mandated by the Safety Council, paid for by U.N. member states, and backed by political efforts to advertise peace.

“There is no such thing as a continent in better want of this new era of peace enforcement missions than Africa,” Guterres mentioned.

The “New Agenda for Peace” is considered one of a number of coverage papers the secretary-general is urging all nations to think about earlier than the Summit of the Future he has known as in September 2024, the place the U.N. hopes a brand new imaginative and prescient for the approaching years reflecting the world immediately that preserves multilateralism might be adopted.

After Guterres’ presentation, many nations voiced preliminary reactions to the proposed agenda with usually sturdy help from the European Union and others. However Egypt mentioned some proposals are too bold and Russia warned in opposition to interference in inner affairs and objecting to the agenda’s emphasis on human rights and calling its method to local weather controversial.

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