Mo Ibrahim Quotes

When the big powers are in agreement, the U. N. performs. When they aren't, the U. N. is paralyzed.

India has a legitimate right to becoming a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

Everybody knows that the United Nations is not the Secretary-General; he has an important position, but the United Nations is the states within this organization, and to be frank, most of the people say only the five permanent members; this is the United Nations because they have the veto, they can do whatever they want and they can refuse whatever they want, and if there's a reform that is very much needed for this organization.

Probably the most useful thing I can do as secretary of state is to assist the president in adapting and renewing the transnational institutions that were created after World War II.

There are big issues, like the reform of the Security Council. These kinds of questions are something the President of the General Assembly must keep his eye on.

But I would say if the Security Council is only relevant if it agrees with the United States, then we have come a long way in a direction that I do not like very much.

The United Nations is in need of reform. The Security Council reflects the world exactly as it was 60 years ago—not today.

Multilateralism may be little more than a polite way of camouflaging what is in practice unilateralism with allies.

The Four Great Powers? Who the hell are the other two?

You can’t go it alone even if you are the world’s only superpower.

The rules that organizations such as the United Nations rely on were not written by the majority of the world’s people, who have long seen powerful states declare exceptions for themselves. Newly powerful states will challenge this system --

History asks of us that we never act unilaterally, never alone, but only within the alliances of NATO, the United Nations and the European Union as it is clearly specified in international law

Neither nor Stalin saw the point of including an enfeebled, half-occupied, riven China. China would serve as a symbolic marker for the future; the world he [FDR] imagined would not forever be dominated by whites.

A Trump presidency - neutral between dictatorships and democracies, opposed to free trade, skeptical of traditional U.S. defense alliances, hostile to immigration - would mark the collapse of the entire architecture of the U.S.-led post-World War II global order.

I'm in favour of a multi-polar world. I believe that every country has the right to defend its own interests.

It is neither feasible nor desirable for Europe to establish itself as a geopolitical equal or competitor of the U.S.

Obama has created a new world where countries ignore the U.S. without consequence. It's so bad that Saudi Arabia doesn't even want to serve on the Security Council with the U.S. because it might ruin their reputation.

We have to acknowledge and discuss with citizens that Germany needs to take on more responsibility. One of the questions is, 'Can we keep a functioning international order?'

I thought that the United Nations is a creature of the five super-powers who were given veto powers. I don't like veto powers at all.

The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation. Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of shared prosperity.

The E.U. cannot act as guardian of the post-Cold War status quo without risking a collapse of Europe's current institutional infrastructure.

There is an ongoing debate about the reform of the U.N. system.

Throughout the years following World War II and until the formation of the European Economic Community in 1958, I was very active as a national or international rapporteur at many of the international conferences aiming to establish an European community.

During the three decades of its existence, the effectiveness of the United Nations has, on the whole, tended to decrease, particularly in the field of peace and security and, more generally, all issues in which the developed countries feel they have important stakes.

The world is shifting from a hegemonic era, where the United States dominated alone, to a multipolar system.