State of world getting worse as UN Security Council paralysed: Guterres

The UN chief’s mandate ends on December 31 this year, with a successor yet to be named.

The state of the world “is getting worse” as wars multiply and become more complex, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said, warning that growing geopolitical divides have paralysed the Security Council and leave the most vulnerable “in very dramatic situations”.

In a wide-ranging interview with Al Jazeera on Monday, the eve of his final address as secretary-general to the UN General Assembly (UNGA), Guterres discussed the major military conflicts happening in the world and whether the UN is still relevant in addressing today’s challenges.

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Guterres said the involvement of “superpowers” and key council members in the wars has created a crisis due to the continued violations of international law.

“That creates an environment of impunity, in which midsize powers believe that they can do whatever they want because nothing will happen to them,” Guterres said.

The UN chief outlined the real-life impacts that the Russia-Ukraine war and the US-Israel war on Iran are having on people, particularly around food accessibility, rising fuel prices and global inflation.

“The combination of the war in Ukraine with the problems of exports of foods, fertilisers, and energy through the Black Sea, if you combine it with the difficulties in the Strait of Hormuz [in the Gulf], in the Bab al-Mandeb [in the Red Sea], and in the attacks [on] oil installations in several countries of the [Middle East] region, we are creating a situation that has a devastating impact on many economies around the world,” Guterres said.

He added that rising interest rates and fuel prices in developed countries could eventually be managed, whereas people in the developing world “are in a desperate situation” due to the increasing energy and food costs and the lack of fertilisers.

Dire need for reforms

Guterres, who previously served as prime minister of Portugal and UN high commissioner for refugees, has been the UN chief since January 1, 2017, though his mandate is coming to an end on December 31, 2026.

His successor, who is yet to be named, will take charge of an organisation that is grappling with multiple crises and is, in Guterres’s opinion, in dire need of reforms to stay relevant and important on the global stage.

He notably cited the Security Council, saying it “still essentially represents the world of World War II”.

Candidates in the running to replace Guterres include the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Rafael Grossi, former Senegalese President Macky Sall and Ecuadorian diplomat Maria Fernanda Espinosa.

To be recommended by the UNSC, a candidate for UN secretary-general needs at least nine of the council’s 15 members to vote in favour and must avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – before a final vote in the UNGA.