UN REFORM WAS “MORE THAN OBVIOUS”: POPE FRANCIS

Sun 16 October 2022:

In an excerpt from his new book released on Sunday, Pope Francis stated that the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine War exposed the UN’s shortcomings and that the need for reform was “more than obvious.”

The Argentine pope stated that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February demonstrated the necessity of finding “more agile and effective ways of resolving conflicts” within the existing multilateral structure, particularly the UN Security Council.

In a statement quoted by La Stampa daily, he said, “In wartime, it is essential to affirm that we need more multilateralism and a better multilateralism,” but the UN is no longer fit for “new realities”,

The organisation was founded to prevent the horrors of two World Wars from happening again, but although the threat represented by those conflicts was still alive, “today’s world is no longer the same”, said Francis.

“The necessity of these reforms became more than obvious after the pandemic” when the current multilateral system “showed all its limits”, he added.

Francis denounced the unequal distribution of vaccines as a “glaring example” of the law of the strongest prevailing over solidarity.

The 85-year-old argued for “organic reforms” that would enable international organizations to rediscover their fundamental goal of “serving the human family” and insisted that international institutions needed to be the outcome of the “widest possible consensus.”

The pope also suggested that international institutions should base their decisions on the guarantee of rights to food, health, economic security, and social justice.

Tuesday marks the release in Italy of Francis’ latest book, “I Ask You in the Name of God: Ten Prayers for a Future of Hope.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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