Guterres Backs UNSC Reform at BRICS Summit, Echoing Modi's Call
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres backed calls to reform the UN Security Council at the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, echoing PM Modi's push for a greater role for developing countries.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday endorsed calls to reform the UN Security Council, telling the BRICS Summit in New Delhi that global institutions must reflect present-day economic, demographic and geopolitical realities rather than those of 1945.
His remarks came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged a larger role for developing countries in global decision-making, saying the Global South should move from being a "rule-taker" to a "rule-shaper".
Guterres noted that the major emerging economies represented at the summit have for years sought an expansion of the Security Council, with India at the forefront of that demand. A shift towards multipolarity, he said, can bring balance and equity to global systems, but it requires reforming multilateral institutions, including the Security Council and the Bretton Woods system.
The New Delhi declaration issued on Saturday recorded the support of China and Russia for a greater role for India and Brazil at the United Nations, including its Security Council, and reiterated the BRICS leaders' backing for a comprehensive reform of the world body.
The Security Council has five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — each holding veto power. Its composition has remained unchanged since the Council was established in 1945.
Outlining priorities for a world in geopolitical flux, Guterres called for multilateral development banks to become bigger, better and bolder, with a new business model to mobilise private investment and expand concessional funding for developing countries.
On artificial intelligence, he said the technology could compress decades of development into years, but warned that its power rests with a few companies in a few countries and that an unchecked AI divide would widen gaps in income, opportunity, security and sovereignty.
Turning to climate justice, he said developed countries must honour their commitments, including $300 billion a year, and stressed that critical minerals should be managed responsibly so that producing countries and communities gain value and jobs.
Guterres also underlined the need for peace, citing Gaza, the wider crisis in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan, and urged states to respect their obligations under the UN Charter and international law, including sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, navigational rights and freedoms, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and international humanitarian and human rights law.
As the world moves irreversibly towards multipolarity, he said, all countries must work to strengthen and safeguard a multilateral system that delivers for all, with the United Nations at its centre.