“The UN has proven capable of acting effectively as a guarantor of peace and security”, but there is no lack of problems, as seen in the “Security Council’s immobility in the face of the tragedy of the Syrian crisis”, asserted Minister Giulio Terzi’s as he opened the ministerial meeting on UN Security Council reform at the foreign ministry in Rome, underscoring that this reform “puts UN credibility at stake”.
Immobility carries a high political price
Terzi cited positive examples such as Timor Est, Lebanon, Somalia, and finally, the “framework of legitimacy” that has allowed the international community to intervene in Mali “to confront the threat of terrorism and organised crime”. At the same time, “we have noted with concern how the Security Council’s immobility carries a high political price for the Organisation in terms of credibility and the ability to effectively fulfil its own mandate”.
The minister pointed out how, thanks to the UN, from end of the Second World War onward, “major advances have been made at international level, and a legal framework has been formulated for addressing fundamental questions” such as, for example, the defence of human rights, assertion of the rule of law and the promotion of sustainable development. And the UN is also to be credited with the “basic principle of humanitarian law”: the responsibility of States and the international community to defend civilian populations from serious, persistence and systematic violations of human rights.
Italy’s frontline role in the defence of human rights
Italy, he added, has always played a “frontline role in this common commitment to foregrounding the principles of humanity and legality: I would cite our efforts toward the abolition of the death penalty, in favour of religious freedom and the creation and strengthening of international jurisdictions, as seen in 1998 when Rome hosted the conference for the establishment of the International Criminal Court”.