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 UN chief’s mandate ends on December 31 this year, with a successor yet to be named. Antonio Guterres: Can the UN still meet today’s global crises? 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.

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