Guterres: the UN Security Council has not fulfilled its tasks, it is time to reform it

The war in Ukraine demonstrated the inability of the UN Security Council to fulfill its main function: to ensure the functioning of the global security system. Therefore, this body needs to be reformed in accordance with "the realities of today's world.

The global financial architecture also needs to be transformed, because it has "become outdated, dysfunctional and unfair. This was stated by UN Secretary General António Guterres at the G7 summit on May 21, writes Reuters.

Guterres is convinced that the UN Security Council and the Bretton Woods system, established in the middle of the last century, are hopelessly outdated and ineffective. Consequently, they need to be reformed in accordance with the realities of the modern world.

"The global financial architecture is outdated, dysfunctional and unfair. Faced with economic crises due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it has failed to fulfill its primary function as a global safety net," Guterres said.

He has previously made critical statements about the ineffectiveness of the UNSC.

"I will be very clear: The Security Council has failed to do everything in its power to prevent and end this war. And that is very disappointing and angry," the UN secretary general said a month earlier, during a visit to Kiev.

The UN Security Council was created in 1945, after World War II. All decisions in this international body are made unanimously by five permanent members (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China) and ten non-permanent members. And if previously the system functioned, but now the presence of the aggressor state among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which has the right of veto and blocks any decision disadvantageous to it, has made the UNSC unable to ensure global security.

At the same time, the current UN Charter does not provide for a mechanism of depriving Russia of its permanent member status without its consent.

Also, according to Guterres, the international system of monetary relations and trade payments, called Bretton Woods, is hopelessly outdated. This system, adopted in 1944, gave birth to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund, whose purpose is to provide financial security and monetary cooperation.

As a reminder, Russia regularly abuses its veto power and blocks any UNSC decisions on the war in Ukraine. Instead, Russia initiates meetings on absurd issues, turning the international body into a charade and demonstrating uncommon cynicism.

For example, on May 12, Russia, whose army is shelling peaceful Ukrainian cities and killing civilians and committing horrific war crimes against Ukrainians, convened the UN Security Council because of the "oppression" of the UOC MP in Ukraine and "concerned" about human rights in Ukraine.

And a week later, the aggressor state broke new ground: Russia convened a UN Security Council meeting where it complained that Ukraine was shooting down its missiles and accused Western countries of helping Kyiv defend itself against unprovoked brutal attacks.

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