The UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres has invoked Article 99 of the UN Constitution, urging the UN Safety Council to behave on the struggle in Gaza.
The uncommon transfer by the secretary-general comes because the Safety Council is but to undertake a decision calling for a ceasefire between Israel, Hamas and their allies.
Thought-about the UN’s strongest physique, the 15-member Safety Council is tasked with sustaining worldwide peace and safety.
In his letter to the council’s president, Guterres invoked this accountability, saying he believed the state of affairs in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, “may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security”.
Guterres – who has been calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” since October 18 – additionally described “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories”.
In response to Guterres’s letter, Safety Council member the United Arab Emirates posted on X to say it had submitted a brand new draft decision to the council, and “called for a humanitarian ceasefire resolution to be adopted urgently”.
The UAE requires a humanitarian ceasefire decision to be adopted urgently and has simply submitted a draft to the UNSC.
The state of affairs within the Gaza Strip is catastrophic and near irreversible. We can’t wait. The Council must act decisively to demand a humanitarian… https://t.co/mDr4c2F2FP
— UAE Mission to the UN (@UAEMissionToUN) December 6, 2023
If the council does select to behave on Guterres’s recommendation and undertake a ceasefire decision, it does have additional powers at its disposal to make sure the decision is applied, together with the facility to impose sanctions or authorise the deployment of a global power.
However the council’s 5 everlasting members – China, Russia, the US, the UK and France – maintain veto energy.
The US used that veto on October 18 in opposition to a decision that might have condemned Hamas’s assault on Israel whereas calling for a pause within the combating to permit humanitarian help into Gaza. Twelve different council members voted in favour, whereas Russia and the UK abstained.
Disaster looms
Guterres mentioned the Safety Council’s continued lack of motion and the sharp deterioration of the state of affairs in Gaza had compelled him to invoke Article 99 for the primary time since he took on the highest job on the UN in 2017.
He warned public order in Gaza might quickly break down amid the entire collapse of the humanitarian system.
“The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region,” he wrote.
“Such an outcome must be avoided at all costs.”
I’ve simply invoked Artwork.99 of the UN Constitution – for the first time in my tenure as Secretary-Normal.
Going through a extreme threat of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the Council to assist avert a humanitarian disaster & enchantment for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared. pic.twitter.com/pA0eRXZnFJ
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) December 6, 2023
However Guterres’s invocation of Article 99 was not welcomed by Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan.
In a publish on X, Erdan described the letter as “more proof” of Guterres’s “moral distortion and his bias against Israel”.
“The secretary-general’s call for a ceasefire is actually a call to keep Hamas’s reign of terror in Gaza,” mentioned Erdan, who additionally repeated his call for Guterres to resign.
The UN Constitution solely supplies restricted powers to the UN secretary-general, who serves because the UN’s Chief Administrative Officer and is elected by member states.
Article 99 of the UN Constitution offers the secretary-general the facility to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.
“The fact that this tool has not been used since 1989 does resonate diplomatically and symbolically here in New York,” Daniel Forti, a senior analyst on UN advocacy and analysis on the Worldwide Disaster Group, advised Al Jazeera.
However Forti added that it’ll not “fundamentally change the political calculation of the Security Council’s most powerful members”.
