Sergei Lavrov Quotes

The United Nations remains our most important global actor. These days we are continuously reminded of the enormous responsibility of the Security Council to uphold international peace and stability.

Without the U. N., world politics is inconceivable.

In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

There is, and there will be, an increasing demand for a principled global security provider, for a superpower that believes in multilateralism and cooperation.

In the euphoria after the Cold War, there was a misplaced notion that the UN could solve every problem anywhere.

The U.N. bureaucracy has grown to elephantine proportions. Now that the Cold War is over, we are asking that elephant to do gymnastics.

The United Nations system is still the best instrument for making the world less fragile.

The United Nations is a failed institution in its current form.

… unless the United Nations stops becoming simply a debating society for anti-American rhetoric, I'm going to show them the door.

U.N. Security Council resolutions are only as effective as their enforcement.

The U.N. is one of many competitors in a marketplace of global problem solving.

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 United Nations will be at the heart of our international activities. France will assume its full responsibilities at the Security Council by putting its status at the service of peace, respect for human rights and development.

As we have seen, the wireless and the airplane have made the world so small and nations so dependent on each other that the only alternative to war is the United States of the World.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today's complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

To solve the problem of organizing world peace we must establish world law and order.

In a case like Iraq the UN has again shown what important role it plays as the guarantor for protecting international peace and stability in the global political structure.

When the world lacks muscular and wise American leadership, it devolves into total chaos, which, in turn, produces unspeakable evils.

So I've gone in and out of the U.N., working on counter-terrorism, on U.N. reform, on peacekeeping, peace and security issues, many things through the years but always with a strong interest in humanitarian issues, and human rights issues as well.

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.

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.

China and the United States have major influence in international affairs and shoulder important responsibilities in upholding world peace and promoting common development.

India seeks to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council... things like this don't happen automatically, you need constant dialogue and discussion with the world.

We have actively sought and are actively seeking to make the United Nations an effective instrument of international cooperation.