United Nations; As the world organisation faces an “urgent make-or-break moment” and the Security Council is paralysed, General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock has stressed the importance of reforming the highest decision-making body.
Briefing the Assembly on her priorities on Wednesday (local time), she slammed the Council, saying, “As the most visible organ of the United Nations, its inability to act in cases of violations of international peace and security affects the credibility of the entire system”.
At this pivotal moment when efforts are being made to make the UN relevant, the “Council cannot be exempt from reform”, she said.
“In line with this, I appointed two co-chairs early in the session to advance efforts to refine proposals for reform, to explore and take the next steps, in line with the calls in the Pact for the Future to develop a consolidated model” for a reformed Council, she said.
She appointed Permanent Representatives Tareq M.A.M. Albanai of Kuwait and Lise Gregoire-van Haaren of the Netherlands to head the Council reform process known as the Inter-Governmental Negotiations.
The Pact of the Future, adopted in September at the high-level meeting of the Assembly, commits the organisation to making itself more efficient and relevant to the needs of the contemporary world.
Japan’s Deputy Permanent Representative Mikanagi Tomohiro said at the session, “Security Council reform is urgently needed as agreed in the Pact for the Future”.
He said that the model for a reformed Council must include the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent categories of membership, which is supported by a majority of Member States”.
It should “serve as the starting point for future text-based negotiations”, Mikanagi added.
India, along with Japan, Brazil and Germany, constitutes the G4, which jointly lobby for Council reform.
The IGN has been bogged down by its failure due to the obstinacy of a small group of countries to adopt a negotiating text to enable the reform process to proceed.
To bring home the magnitude of the crises the world faces, Baerbock started her speech saying ironically, “In ordinary times, I would wish you a happy New Year, but looking at the world outside, how 2026 started, in Caracas… Tehran, frankly, happiness is in short supply”.
“We find ourselves at an even more urgent make-or-break moment than four months ago, when I opened the 80th session” of the Assembly, she said.
The US made an incursion into Venezuela on January 3 and captured its leader, Nicolas Maduro, and currently Iran is rocked by a massive popular protest, and US President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb targets there, said Baerbock, warning that the multilateralism -- and the UN -- are “under attack”.
“Not all are as invested in the Charter and international law”, she said.
“No country can sleep in peace while more and more Member States, including some P5 (permanent members of the Council), violate the core principles of our Charter”, she said.
“This is the moment when we need Member States from all regions -- real passionate supporters of the UN and multilateralism -- to come together to build a cross-regional alliance to protect and promote the principles of this Charter”, she said.