Hiba Qasas

But the issue is that we are in this new territory, new technologies, new conduct in warfare, less respect for international law, a lot less respect for the Geneva Conventions and the rules of war, and a rhetoric that is being discussed where sometimes there's reference to eradicating civilizations, which is a very, very dangerous rhetoric.

So we are in uncharted territory.

And at the same time, the other side of the danger is that we also have an international system that is not working.

You know, the whole UN system is struggling.

Yeah.

So it's going to be a difficult moment, I think, for all of us to calibrate.

I mean, look, the UN, it was created, you know, Dag Hammarskjöld said it's actually to prevent us from going to hell rather than to create, you know, heaven on Earth.

So it's the least, you know, worst system of international institutions one can have.

But I have...

you know served within the UN and I do see the limitations of it and I do see the frustration and I do see the bureaucracy and I do see that this is a system that has not evolved in the past 50 years you know the whole peace and security architecture have not evolved so you know the security council is the security council with the five member states and so it hasn't really reformed itself yeah

And something that does not evolve in this era of fast transformation, which we're in, it's not fit for purpose.

Now, does that mean that we throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Not necessarily, because we do still need multilateralism.

We still need alliances of the willing.

We still need international solidarity and solidarity.

international cooperation, we are interdependent, we are interconnected, and there needs to be positive mechanism to create that.

And the UN could be that, but it really needs serious, serious reform, not this pretense at reform, which is constantly every few years, you know, we have, you know, a new initiative of the Secretary General and

They keep doing change management here and there.

And, you know, as an old philosopher said, the best illusion of progress is change.

So you just have every time the new broom who's coming and just, you know, creating another change management exercise to create the illusion of progress.