At the start of his final year as U.N. secretary-general, Antonio Guterres told the U.N. General Assembly that the organization’s 193 member nations are facing “a world marked by self-defeating geopolitical divides, brazen violations of international law, and wholesale cuts in development and humanitarian aid.”
In the remarks, Guterres said the forces he described are shaking “the foundations of global cooperation” at a time when cooperation is needed most. He said the erosion is driven by leaders choosing divisive approaches rather than rules-based coordination.
Guterres warned that “Some seek to put international cooperation on deathwatch,” and he told the assembly, “I can assure you: We will not give up.” He said he was speaking as his second five-year term ends on Dec. 31.
He also reiterated criticisms he has made about specific countries. Guterres has repeatedly criticized Russia for violating the U.N. Charter, which requires countries to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations, by invading Ukraine in February 2022.
Guterres said he has criticized the United States for a military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and for deadly attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the U.S. says are carrying drugs. He linked those examples to a broader concern about leaders picking and choosing which rules to follow.
“When leaders run roughshod over international law — when they pick and choose which rules to follow — they are not only undermining global order, they are setting a perilous precedent,” Guterres said. He said people around the world are watching the erosion of international law and the consequences of impunity.
He pointed to a series of outcomes he said reflect that erosion: “the illegal use and threat of force; attacks on civilians, humanitarian workers and U.N. personnel; unconstitutional changes of government; the trampling of human rights; the silencing of dissent; the plundering of resources.” He said those trends are visible to global audiences and carry consequences beyond individual conflicts.
Guterres also criticized countries that do not pay their U.N. dues on time, describing it as another strain on the international body’s functioning. The remarks included a jab at the Trump administration, which did not pay its mandatory dues to the U.N.’s budgets in 2025.
Alongside violations of international law, Guterres warned about the dangers of what he described as a concentration of power and wealth. He said the world’s richest 1% hold 43% of global financial assets.
“Increasingly, we see a world where the ultra-wealthiest and the companies they control are calling the shots like never before — wielding outsized influence over economies, information and even the rules that govern us all,” Guterres said.
This story is algorithmically generated and published under a CC0 public-domain dedication (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). Human review: not_triggered.