Under an antagonistic and polarizing crusade that is witnessed within the highest body in charge of maintaining international peace and security, the visit of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is enshrined, the second trip abroad that takes place in the middle of the six-year term, after the first interview with former President Trump in Washington.
Although the spirits will be guided to participate in a high-level debate on “Exclusion, inequality and conflict”, in which it is expected to focus the message on the fight against corruption, the reality will be marked by other tough issues, of greater ambition. and of enormous geopolitical repercussions that are sealing the circuits of the international debate.
Afghanistan, the chaotic situation in Sudan resulting from the latest coup, the scheduled meetings on the support missions in Libya, Somalia and the Central African Republic, the status of Yemen, the use of chemical weapons in Syria or the planned review meeting of sanctions against North Korea of the 1718 Committee. All of the above materializes in a powerful reminder about the nature of the highest decision-making body, the one that allows the use of force, imposes sanctions, establishes vetoes, dictates arms embargoes and it establishes international criminal tribunals, in addition to approving and coordinating Peacekeeping Operations (PMOs).
It will be in this tangled and complex scenario where Mexico seeks to position its international priorities before a Security Council that constantly uses the interposition of the use of the veto between the five permanent members who have obstructed its operation: 210 vetoes in more than 75 years of work that are seasoned under the delay of difficult and prolonged negotiations.
The data published by the United Nations Digital Library support this inaction, paralysis and dysfunction with the lowest number of formal decisions that the Council managed to endorse since 1991: 67 in 2019 and 70 in 2020. Still, the geopolitical rivalry between states The United States and China, which is becoming more formalized every day, and added to the anger of Paris with Washington and London over the military pact with Australia (AUKUS), the number could now slope even more downward.