IN A scathing commentary, UN chief Antonio Guterres has said that global powers that themselves violate international law sit in the Security Council, as he asserted that reform of the 15-nation global body “must be an absolute priority”. Secretary General Guterres also underscored the need for “redistribution of power.” “Well, let’s be clear. We have geopolitical divides, and in these geopolitical divides, we have powers that themselves violate international law and sit in the Security Council. And that has been paralysing the Security Council, as we know,” Guterres told reporters on Wednesday.

 

“That is why the reform of the Security Council must be an absolute priority. It is unacceptable to have a Security Council with a composition that reflects the world of many decades ago instead of reflecting today’s world.” “And that is a factor of paralysis,” the UN chief said while addressing a press conference at the world headquarters ahead of the opening of the high-level week of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. Guterres said that paralysis of the UN Security Council has created a situation in which “because the example coming from the biggest powers is not a good example, every country around the world feels that they are entitled to do whatever they want.

 

And they know that they will do it with impunity because the Security Council, that is the organisation that is supposed to maintain peace and security in the world, is paralysed. “That impunity has created this environment in which we see more and more countries violating international law”, international humanitarian law and human rights law, and “doing it in total impunity.

 

 

IN A scathing attack on Pakistan, India has said the “architects” of the 9/11 attacks were not hiding in “caves or badlands,” but had long evaded detection, asserting that the same “permissive environment” continues to support terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, India’s Permanent Representative Harish Parvathaneni invoked the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He said al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were eventually found in settled communities rather than remote hideouts. “The international community supported the global campaign to counter terrorism in the wake of 9/11. Let us not forget, however, that al-Qaeda’s terror ecosystem established its strategic depth beyond Afghanistan through its affiliates,” Parvathaneni said on Wednesday. Addressing the UNSC meeting on the situation in Afghanistan, Parvathaneni listed the names of al-Qaeda leaders who had planned and perpetrated the September 11, 2001 attacks and who were captured in Pakistani cities. “The leaders of al-Qaeda who conceived and directed these 9/11 attacks did not escape justice in the wilderness of some ungoverned frontier,” Parvathaneni said.