Our world is facing existential challenges, but the global community is more fragmented and divided than at any time during the past 75 years. And we are dealing with two more threats with existential dimensions: the climate crisis, and the risks of uncontrolled Artificial Intelligence. Multipolarity has created important opportunities for balance and justice, and for new leadership on the global stage.
Impunity seems to be the name of the game and so we must all be determined to establish the primacy of the rule of law. As the Munich Security Report makes clear, relative gains through competition between countries are being prioritized over absolute gains for all through cooperation. If countries fulfilled their obligations under the UN Charter and international law, every person on earth would live in peace and dignity. The problem is that many governments are ignoring these commitments.
Millions of civilians are paying a terrible price. Record numbers have been forced to flee. Nothing can justify the unconscionable terror attacks launched by Hamas on 7 October against Israel. The level of death and destruction is shocking in itself. The war is also spilling over borders across the region and affecting global trade. Humanitarians are working under unimaginable conditions β including live fire, multiple physical obstacles and Israeli restrictions as well as the breakdown of public order.
Rafah is at the core of the entire humanitarian aid operation. An all out offensive on the city would be devastating for the 1. I have repeatedly called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and a humanitarian ceasefire. That is the only way to massively scale up the aid delivery in Gaza. This must be the foundation for concrete and irreversible steps towards a two-state solution, based on international law and United Nations resolutions. The war triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in clear violation of the UN charter, has no place in the Europe of the 21st century.
Two years in, the cost in human lives and suffering is appalling and the impact on the global economy has been particularly devastating for developing countries. We desperately need a just and sustained peace for Ukraine, for Russia, and for the world. A peace in line with the UN charter and international law, which establishes the obligation to respect the territorial integrity of sovereign states. And around the world, from the Sahel to Libya and Sudan, from the Great Lakes to the Horn of Africa, from Yemen to Myanmar, we need concerted efforts to strengthen regional organizations and for global powers to pressure the parties to war to come to the peace table and to pursue their goals through negotiations.
