Pope: “Review the UN Security Council”
“When we talk about world peace and security, the first organization we think of is that of the United Nations (the UN) and, in particular, its Security Council. The war in Ukraine has once again highlighted how necessary it is for the current multilateral structure to find more agile and effective ways for the solution of conflicts“. He writes it Pope Francis in the book “I ask you in the name of God. Ten prayers for a future of hope” which will be released on Tuesday and today is anticipated by La Stampa.
“In times of war it is essential to argue that we need more multilateralism and better multilateralism”, states the Pontiff, “The UN was built on a Charter that was intended to shape the rejection of the horrors that humanity experienced in the two wars of the twentieth century. Although the threat that they will reappear is still alive, on the other hand the world today is no longer the same, and it is therefore necessary to rethink these institutions so that they respond to the new existing reality and are the result of the highest possible consensus “.
By now, in fact, “it has become more than clear how necessary these reforms are after the pandemic, when the current multilateral system has highlighted all its limitations. From the distribution of vaccines we have had a clear example of how sometimes the law of the strongest outweighs solidarity “.
“We therefore have an unmissable opportunity to think about and carry out organic reforms, aimed at making international organizations recover their essential vocation to serve the human family, to take care of the common home and to protect the life of every person and peace “, continues Bergoglio’s reasoning”But I don’t want to blame the whole thing on organizations, which ultimately aren’t anymore – but no less – than an area in which the states that compose them come together and determine their politics and activities “.
“Here lies the basis of the de-legitimization and degradation of international organizations: states have lost the ability to listen to each other in order to make consensual and favorable decisions for the universal common good”, he continues, “No legal framework can be sustained in the absence of the commitment of the interlocutors, their readiness for a fair and sincere discussion, their willingness to accept the inevitable concessions that arise from the dialogue between the parties. If the member countries of these bodies do not show the political will to make them work, we are facing a clear step back “.
“We see, instead, that they prefer to impose their ideas or interests in a very rash way”, notes the Pope, “Only if we take advantage of the post-pandemic opportunity to reset these bodies will we be able to create institutions with which to face the great challenges, always more urgent, which lie ahead, such as climate change or the peaceful use of nuclear energy “.
Bergoglio quotes his encyclical Laudato Si‘: “I urged to promote an” integral ecology “, in the same way I believe that the debate on the restructuring of international organizations should be inspired by the concept of” integral security “. That is to say, no longer limited to the canons of armaments and of force militarybut aware of the fact that in a world that has reached a level of interconnection like the present one, it is impossible to have, for example, effective food security without environmental, health, economic and social security. And every global institution that we will try to redesign must be based on this hermeneuticsalways invoking dialogue, openness to trust between countries and intercultural and multilateral respect “.
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