UN chief warns world leaders of ‘an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering’

Secretary General Antonio Guterres addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, at UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

UNITED NATIONS — With global peace and progress under siege, the United Nations chief challenged world leaders Tuesday to choose a future where the rule of law triumphs over raw power and where nations come together rather than scramble for self-interests.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN’s founders faced the same questions 80 years ago, but he told today’s world leaders at the opening of their annual gathering at the General Assembly that the choice of peace or war, law or lawlessness, cooperation or conflict, is “more urgent, more intertwined, more unforgiving.”

“We have entered in an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering,” he said in his annual “state of the World” speech. “The pillars of peace and progress are buckling under the weight of impunity, inequality and indifference.”

But despite all the internal and external challenges facing the UN, he and General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock pleaded with its members not to give up. “If we stop doing the right things, evil will prevail,” Baerbock said in her opening remarks.

Guterres said the leaders’ first obligation is to choose peace, and without naming any countries, he urged all parties -- including those in the Assembly chamber -- to stop supporting Sudan’s warring parties.

He also didn’t name Israel but used his strongest words against its actions in Gaza, saying the scale of death and destruction are the worst in his nearly nine years as secretary-general, and that “nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

While Guterres has repeatedly said only a court can determine whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, he referred to the case South Africa brought to the UN’s highest court under the genocide convention by name -- and stressed its legally binding provisional measures, first and foremost to protect Palestinian civilians.

Since the International Court of Justice issued that ruling in January 2024, Guterres said, killings have intensified, and famine has been declared in parts of Gaza. He said the court’s measures “must be implemented -- fully and immediately.”

The UN also is facing financial cuts as the U.S. and some other nations pulled back funding or have yet to pay their dues. Guterres said aid cuts are “wreaking havoc,” calling them “a death sentence for many.”

U.S. President Donald Trump, in one of the gathering’s most closely watched speeches, said he felt the UN has “tremendous potential” but isn’t coming close to fulfilling it.

“For the most part, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter,” and not follow up, he said as he portrayed the UN as an ineffectual institution, from its policies to even its escalators. One of them had stopped unexpectedly as he and first lady Melania Trump were riding it toward the Assembly hall.

The U.S. president’s “America First” credo has always been a tricky fit with the UN’s commitment to global-scale shared decision-making. Returning to the Assembly rostrum five years after he last addressed the gathering by video during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump also touted his own foreign policy moves and told his peers that “your countries are going to hell” because of “uncontrolled migration.”

Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes centre stage

With global support for a Palestinian state growing, Israel’s devastating war in Gaza is expected to take center stage. But humanity’s myriad conflicts, rising poverty and heating planet will also be in the spotlight.

The General Assembly ‘s big week of meetings began Monday with events including a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tuesday kicked off the “General Debate” -- more of an agglomeration of speeches -- in which presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and cabinet members give their annual take on the state of the world and their own nations.

Besides Trump, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, French President Emmanuel Macron, South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa were among those scheduled to speak Tuesday.

Da Silva -- speaking first, under a longtime tradition dating to when Brazil was the only nation that volunteered to lead off -- worried aloud that the UN’s authority was waning.

“We are witnessing the consolidation of an international order blocked by repeated concessions to power play,” he said.

Geopolitical problems keep getting more complex

While the debate’s theme is “Better Together,” observers can expect a rundown of ways in which the world is falling apart.

Gaza already has seized attention at the General Assembly. Monday’s conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, focused on garnering support for the longstanding idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Almost all UN member nations have signed up to take their turn during the Assembly’s six-day-long speechfest. The speakers’ list so far includes 89 heads of state, 43 heads of government, 10 people who are vice presidents or deputy prime ministers and 45 foreign ministers and other ministerial-level officials.

Edith M. Lederer, Jennifer Peltz And Farnoush Amiri, The Associated Press