Secretary General Antonio Guterres, nice to have you back on GZERO. It's an enormous pleasure, as always. It's a busy week for you. I want to start with one of the biggest questions, something I'm troubled by, which is when I grew up as a kid, I thought that democracy and a regulated free market were the ideas for how we should run the world. People today don't see those ideas.
As motivating them. When you think of your role as Secretary General and you represent people all over the world, what are the ideas that we can look to to the future? I think the most important idea, when you are as I am in the United Nations, is to make people understand that we need to live in a rules-based world.
We have the values of the Charter, but we need to have international law. And people need to respect international law, and international humanitarian law. And there must be accountability, because the main problem of today's world is total impunity. There are no rules, or nobody respects the rules that exist.
And as the geopolitical divides are so deep, There is no respect. Nobody believes that one of the big powers will intervene if a situation is created by a troublemaker anywhere. And so troublemakers have multiplied, spoilers have multiplied, we have seen conflicts more and more, and as I said, a sense of impunity. Every country or every organization or... militia or whatever, thinks that they can do whatever they want because they know that they will not pay a price for that.
And the United Nations was founded on the exact opposite of that principle. And that is why we believe it's time to look seriously into how our global governance is not working and what kind of reforms are necessary. In international institutions, be it the Security Council, be it the Bretton Woods system, be it whatever is relevant in today's multilateral institution, to at least try to put some order in today's world and to avoid this chaotic development in which we see conflicts multiplying, inequalities growing, climate change without an adequate answer.
and artificial intelligence without an effective way for the international community to deal with it. It does appear that Security Council reform is getting a little more traction than it has historically. I see your calls to have African states as permanent members of the Security Council.
The United States government is saying in principle they're interested in this. Do you think... That there is enough momentum to make a durable reform of the Security Council happen.
Probably not immediately, but there is a huge difference in relation to the recent past. When I started my function to talk about the reform of the Security Council, it was a double. That was unacceptable. everybody recognizes that the reform of the Security Council is necessary.
I mean, the African situation is a historic injustice. Africa has been a double victim of colonialism, first of all because of colonialism itself, and second, because of colonialism they were not present when institutions were built. And obviously, we see today emerging economies that are very relevant in the international arena, and it makes absolute sense to take seriously into account their candidacies.
For the first time, the five permanent members recognize that they are ready to accept at least an African permanent member in the Security Council, or two, like the United States just announced yesterday. And to be clear, we're not talking about extending the veto. to African countries? No, that I don't think is realistic. The five vetoes will be maintained, even if the five vetoes are one of the reasons why the Security Council doesn't work properly.
Yes. But that will be very difficult. Of course, the African countries want to have the veto and all the other candidates want to have the veto.
Probably it will not happen, but... This reform of the Security Council is today a central issue in the discussions in the United Nations and it will be a central issue, I'm sure, in the summit of the future. And I hope that there will be a clear indication that it must be done.