Global Order Under Threat, German President Urges UN Reform

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier/DOK FOTO Steffen Prößdorf via Wikimedia Commons

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that the international law-based global order was facing unprecedented pressure and urged a new global commitment to cooperation and stronger United Nations (UN) reform.

Steinmeier, speaking at the opening of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, said the world was entering a period in which long-standing international norms were increasingly under threat.

"We live in an era when international rules that have guided us for decades are under threat, when some powerful countries no longer adhere to these rules and boldly violate them when they hinder their own power interests," he said, quoted by ANTARA from Anadolu, Tuesday, June 30.

According to the daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, Steinmeier said global politics was increasingly shaped by "raw power politics, zero-sum thinking and confrontation," which shifted what he called the foundations of a cooperative international system.

"The spirit of brutality and cruelty is sweeping through international politics," Steinmeier continued.

Despite this development, Steinmeier stressed that abandoning multilateral cooperation would be the wrong move.

"Withdrawal from the United Nations would be a short-sighted and fatal act. Nevertheless, the UN must change, must become more efficient and effective, prove that this body can deliver better results than authoritarian leaders with their fantasies of omnipotence," he said.