U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders Tuesday that the state of the world is unsustainable.
“We can’t go on like this,” he said at the start of the U.N. General Assembly annual debate.
He said there is a level of impunity felt by some governments that is “politically indefensible and morally intolerable.”
Citing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and conflicts across the Horn of Africa and beyond, Guterres scolded violators for trampling international law and the United Nations Charter and causing untold suffering.
“They can invade another country, lay waste to whole societies, or utterly disregard the welfare of their own people,” he said. “And nothing will happen.”
He expressed particular concern about the escalating situation between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah.
“We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,” he warned. “The people of Lebanon — the people of Israel and the people of the world — cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza.”
Guterres also expressed concern about climate change, human rights, development challenges and the need to reform aging international institutions, including the United Nations.
