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antonio guterres
AI 'Must Be Governed,' Says UN Chief, Sounding Alarm Over Killer Robots
"Machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life—without human control and judgment. That is morally repugnant. It is politically unacceptable. And it must be banned by international law."
Jul 06, 2026
As the global artificial intelligence arms race accelerates and lethal autonomous weapons systems—better known as "killer robots"—go from the stuff of science fiction to battlefield reality, the head of the United Nations warned Monday that the world is running out of time to set international rules governing AI before the technology outpaces humanity's ability to control it.
"We may be the last generation able to set the terms on which humanity and machines coexist," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a social media post coinciding with his speech at the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva.
"If AI is to be powerful, it must be governed," he asserted. "If AI is to be trusted, those who build it must be accountable. If AI is to be global, it must be fair. And if AI is to serve the future, it must not consume the future. Let’s build a future of AI by humanity, with humanity, for all humanity."
"My main concern is with 'lethal autonomous weapon systems,'" Guterres stressed during his speech. "Let us call them what they are: killer robots."
"Machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life—without human control and judgment," the UN chief added. "That is morally repugnant. It is politically unacceptable. And it must be banned by international law."
While scores of nations and civil society groups—chiefly, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots—support a treaty banning lethal autonomous weapons systems, key military powers including the United States, Russia, and Israel have resisted negotiating a legally binding ban.
Proponents of killer robots argue that their development is inevitable, that they could reduce harm to noncombatants, and that they represent progress.
"It's a scary idea, but, I mean, that's the world we live in," Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey said of killer robots on CBS News' "60 Minutes" last year.
"I'd say it's a lot scarier, for example, to imagine a weapons system that doesn't have any level of intelligence at all," Luckey added. "It's not a question between smart weapons and no weapons. It's a question between smart weapons and dumb weapons."
However, recent real-world examples show how AI-powered warfare can actually multiply civilian harm. One Israeli intelligence source said that the Israel Defense Forces' use of AI systems like Habsora to automatically select airstrike targets at an exponentially faster rate than humans has transformed the IDF into a “mass assassination factory” in which the “emphasis is on quantity and not quality” of kills.
Combined with the use of massive 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs and a policy empowering relatively junior IDF officers to order attacks on not only senior Hamas commanders but any fighter in the resistance group, regardless of civilian casualties, mass casualty events increased dramatically during Israel's ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, which has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing.
In one AI-aided airstrike targeting a single senior Hamas commander, the IDF dropped multiple US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs, each of which can level an entire city block, on the Jabalia refugee camp in October 2023, killing at least 126 people, 68 of them children, and wounding 280 others. Hamas said four Israeli and three international hostages abducted on October 7, 2023 were also killed in the attack.
The Washington Post reported early during the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran that the Pentagon has “leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare," including Palantir’s Maven Smart System, which reportedly helped US commanders select 1,000 Iranian targets during the war’s first 24 hours alone. Among the civilian targets hit during that period was the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab. Iranian officials said the US attack massacred 156 people, at least 120 of them children, and wounded 95 others.
During his speech Monday, Guterres said "let us not wait for atrocity to act" on banning autonomous weapons systems, drawing criticism from social media users, including one account noting that Israeli forces "are quite LITERALLY using AI to commit genocide, and here you are still talking in IFs."
While acknowledging AI's enormous potential, Guterres warned about other dangers of deploying the technology without effective governance. The UN chief highlighted threats to democracy and children, as well as the risk of increasing inequality due to the concentration of power, economic disruption, and mass unemployment.
"Innovation needs guardrails," he said. "The technologies we trust most—in aviation, in medicine, in nuclear energy, and beyond—earned that trust because we acted to hold their makers to account."
Guterres also noted that, amid a worsening climate emergency, AI data centers now consume more electricity than most countries.
“By 2030, they could use more electricity than all but five nations—and enough water to meet the needs of all 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa for an entire year," he said.
Other speakers at the forum sounded the alarm on even greater risks posed by the unchecked development of AI.
"Highly concerning tests have... shown that frontier AI models are capable of deceiving humans, to understand when they are being tested," Yoshua Bengio, co-chair of the UN's Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, said.
"It sounds like science fiction, but it's a real possibility, and it could change the world in ways that we don't understand yet, and it could change the power dynamics of our planet in ways that require our attention," he added.
As with thermonuclear weapons during the Cold War, experts, including some of the pioneers of AI technology, have increasingly warned that a poorly governed race toward artificial general intelligence—a hypothetical advanced AI that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge of any subject as well as or better than a typical human—could pose an existential threat to humanity.
"AI is too consequential to be shaped by a few," said Amandeep Singh Gill, the UN special envoy for digital and emerging technologies. "We need a conversation that is global, inclusive, and grounded in evidence."
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UN Creates 'AI for Good' Commission—Full of Big Tech Execs
The commission's upcoming first meeting will focus on "strengthening AI infrastructure, accelerating AI's impact on health, education, food security, and disaster response, and ensuring trust and safety," said its CEO co-chair.
Jul 01, 2026
A week after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on artificial intelligence companies to "come clean" about the full costs of power-sucking data centers, and as a UN panel on Wednesday released a report detailing the risks and impacts of AI, Axios revealed the creation of a related commission that's full of Big Tech executives.
"The UN and its International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are convening the AI for Good Global Commission, which will hold its first meeting on July 8 in Geneva, Switzerland," according to the outlet. It will be co-chaired by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, with other tech and policy leaders joining as members.
So far, Axios reported, they include ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Estonian President Alar Karis, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, Cohere co-founder Aidan Gomez, Microsoft president Brad Smith, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang, and AI and tech policymakers from Kazakhstan, Namibia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore.
"AI is the most profound technological transition in history. And our values have to guide every step, because responsibility is the core of AI ethics," Benioff said. The commission will bring together "the people who build AI, deploy it, shape policy, and represent communities."
He added that "our inaugural meeting will focus on where this group is uniquely positioned to act together: strengthening AI infrastructure, accelerating AI's impact on health, education, food security, and disaster response, and ensuring trust and safety."
However, given recent polls showing that the public has limited confidence in large technology companies, opposes constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, is wary of AI’s impact on daily life, and has concerns about politicians having a "cozy relationship" with Big Tech, the commission may be met with skepticism or even backlash.
In the lead-up to the commission's meeting next week at the ITU's AI for Good Global Summit, the UN plans to hold the inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance, featuring a presentation of the "Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence," published Wednesday.
Established with a UN resolution last August, the panel is the first global scientific body on AI—and, as Guterres said in a statement about its new report, "the panel is intended to help the world separate fact from fakes, and science from slop."
"We are looking to them to provide an authoritative reference point at a moment when reliable, unbiased understanding of AI has never been more critical," the UN chief explained. "I am pleased to say that they have delivered a down payment on that commitment—in record time."
The panel's co-chair, Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, noted that "AI capabilities are outpacing both scientific understanding and governments' ability to adapt. With growing evidence of deceptive AI behavior, science currently cannot guarantee that as capabilities continue to increase, AI will not cause catastrophic harm, either on its own or due to malicious users."
"To act effectively, global policymakers must understand these systems," he asserted. "This panel provides exactly that: a rigorous, shared scientific foundation to guide our collective way forward."
The report discusses AI's recent advances and expected trajectories; societal applications, from agriculture to education to healthcare; economic implications; security and environmental concerns; impacts on democracy, human rights, and information; potential harms to child safety and culture; and governance of the rapidly developing technology.
"The technology is transformative, but if the world keeps moving along this trajectory, humanity will fail to realize the gains it promises. The risks—to societies, to security, and to our species—are too high, and the forces driving AI forward are not the forces that will deliver its benefits," said Maria Ressa, a panel's co-chair and Nobel Peace Prize-winning Filipino-American journalist.
Guterres, whose term ends this year, similarly stressed the need for urgent action on a global scale. He said that the "single lesson" he wanted to highlight from the multifaceted report is that "the more AI advances without shared rules, the less say governments and people will have in the outcome. So my message to governments is simple: Do not wait."
"Next week in Geneva, the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance will begin to turn science into shared action—with every nation at the same table," he said. "I look forward to joining member states there to help carry this work forward. And soon, I will set out proposals to help countries build the capacity to adequately deal with this technology—and share in its rewards."
Guterres' Wednesday comments came after he publicly took aim at artificial intelligence companies last week, proposing the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative during London Climate Action Week, as the second heatwave in as many months scorched the United Kingdom and various other European countries, killing at least hundreds of people.
"I am calling on every major AI company to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of its systems—carbon, water, and land footprints—and to commit to power every data center with renewable energy by 2030," he declared. "No more hidden costs. No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it."
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UN Chief Says Civilians 'Must Be Protected' as Pakistani Strikes Kill Dozens of Afghans
Women and children were reportedly among the at least 28 civilians killed and 49 others wounded on Sunday by airstrikes targeting Pakistani Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces.
Jun 29, 2026
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities and the protection of civilians” after Pakistani airstrikes killed and wounded scores of Afghans, including women and children.
Pakistani forces bombed targets in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces and launched a ground invasion of the neighboring nation.
The attacks—which Afghanistan's Taliban government called "cowardly" and an "atrocity"—reportedly killed at least 28 civilians and wounded 49 others.
"We call on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and continue to stress that civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times," Guterres said in a statement read in New York by his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
Dujarric also said that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) “just confirmed that many civilians were killed and injured in these airstrikes carried out by Pakistan," and that “humanitarian colleagues tell us that the latest attacks have also reportedly triggered displacement, and humanitarian partners on the ground are assessing needs and preparing to provide emergency assistance.”
Paktia elder Adam Khan told Agence France-Presse that those killed in one of the strikes "were innocent civilians, including children, elderly people, and women" sleeping in a house.
Pakistani officials say the military operations are aimed at militant groups that it says operate from Afghan territory and launch attacks into Pakistan, not at Afghanistan's government. Islamabad accuses Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan—also known as the Pakistani Taliban—and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar of having recently attacked Pakistani security forces and civilians.
Last October, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to a now-imploded ceasefire after weeks of border clashes that killed dozens of civilians and wounded hundreds more.
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Could the UN Secretary-General’s 'Good Offices' Help to End the Iran War?
Given the two-week ceasefire, the recent appointment of an experienced personal envoy for the Middle East conflict by UN Secretary-General Guterres and the establishment of a UN Task Force to facilitate the opening of the Strait of Hormuz offer hope for lasting peace.
Apr 09, 2026
While the whole world held its breath, hoping for some way the overcome the ultimatum that President Donald Trump had given to Iran, Pakistan, working feverishly as a third-party mediator (with the help of Türkiye, Egypt, and other regional powers, as well as China), was able to obtain a last-minute agreement from the parties for a two-week cessation of hostilities which would allow commercial shipping to resume (with Iranian supervision) through the Strait of Hormuz.
Although widely welcomed, this brief ceasefire is only the beginning. To bring about a lasting end to the war, over the next two weeks the mediators will have to become involved in intensive negotiations with all of the parties to find a peace settlement acceptable to all.
This will require considerable in-depth, in-person consultations by the mediators with each of the parties to understand the issues and interests of each and to go beyond their incompatible positions to find common ground and develop creative solutions that reconcile differences, especially those related to each party’s security concerns.
Much of this work is best done through intensive shuttle diplomacy, wherein those acting as third parties discuss the issues and possible components of agreements through separate talks with each party. This is preferable to face-to-face plenary meetings between the parties, which are often unproductive, since the parties typically just reiterate and insist on their already well-known confrontational positions. Such work requires sufficient time, considerable finesse and creativity, as well as close coordination between all of those involved. Knowledge of previous peace processes and the substance of peace agreements is also very important.
If successful, however, the UN’s assistance with a viable solution would not only resolve the dangerous hostilities in the Middle East, but could also offer a more permanent off-ramp for the Trump administration.
Two recent initiatives by the United Nations secretary-general may prove useful in this regard. On March 25, Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Jean Arnault, a seasoned peacemaker with 40 years of experience in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, as his “personal envoy of the secretary-general on the Middle East conflict and its consequences” to carry out good offices on his behalf. Although perhaps not widely known, the secretary-general’s good offices functions (often carried out through “quiet diplomacy”) have been widely used since the UN’s inception 80 years ago, in large and small conflicts around the world, with considerable success.
In some situations, the secretary-general’s envoy has worked on their own directly with the parties; in other cases, the envoy has worked in close coordination with a small group of UN Member States. In this situation, the UN secretary-general’s personal envoy could offer his assistance to the already-existing group of state mediators led by Pakistan in their efforts to arrive at a peace agreement. Given the extremely short time frame available, such assistance should be welcomed.
It is likely that Iran will also welcome the involvement of a personal envoy of the secretary-general, since in 1988, the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Representative on Iran-Iraq, Jan Eliasson, helped bring about the end of the very long and destructive Iran-Iraq war. In this and other conflicts, the secretary-general’s good offices have been acceptable to conflicting parties because the UN is viewed as impartial, unlike mediation efforts by states, which have their own interests. As well, the deep experience of UN mediators in applying constructive problem-solving approaches to conflict resolution makes them attractive as third party mediators.
A second recent initiative by Secretary-General Guterres that may prove to be very helpful is the creation of a UN Task Force to facilitate resolution of maritime problems in the Strait of Hormuz. This initiative was based on previous UN experience at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whereby UN involvement helped overcome the cessation of maritime grain shipments from Ukraine, as well as food and fertilizer from Russia, which were causing a world food crisis.
After extensive talks hosted by Türkiye, with UN assistance, the Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed by Ukraine and Russia, as well as by Türkiye and the UN, in separate but concurrent “mirror” agreements. The first outlined the safe export of grain and related food and fertilizers via demined corridors in the Black Sea, with Türkiye inspecting ships on their way to Ukrainian ports to ensure they weren’t carrying weapons. The second outlined a set of procedures for getting food, fertilizer, and raw material exports safely out of Russia.
Drawing on this previous experience, The UN Task Force will involve some of the same UN specialized agencies that were helpful in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, such as the International Maritime Organization. The Task Force is meant to work out constructive and “operational maritime solutions” that will help to secure the evacuation of over 2,000 ships and 20,000 seafarers currently stranded in the Persian Gulf, as well as facilitate humanitarian corridors for the safe passage of goods.
Since it came to power, the Trump administration has generally ignored the capacities of the United Nations; its history and experience; and its universally-accepted authority. If successful, however, the UN’s assistance with a viable solution would not only resolve the dangerous hostilities in the Middle East, but could also offer a more permanent off-ramp for the Trump administration.
Although not widely known, it is now well-documented, that, during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, UN Secretary-General U Thant played a pivotal role in helping to avert a nuclear war and resolve the worst international crisis since the end of the World War II, by using his good offices to make proposals to US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for de-escalation and the ultimate resolution of the crisis.
As explained by the authors of an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the good offices of the secretary-general can offer a unique contribution to world peace:
For U Thant and his UN organization, the Cuban Missile Crisis was their finest hour... It was the week the United Nations helped the superpowers pull back from nuclear destruction. The nuclear clock did not strike midnight, largely because Thant facilitated face-saving and de-escalation, transmitted messages, traveled to Cuba, fostered restraint and hope, and made significant proposals, including the idea for the final settlement of the crisis... it is appropriate to finally give U Thant credit for his remarkable contribution to averting doomsday.
Let us hope that Secretary-General Guterres and his special envoy will be able to play a similarly constructive role in another extremely dangerous conflict and remind the world of the vital role that the UN has played and can continue to play in preventing and resolving violent conflicts among its member states.
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Demanding Peace Talks, UN Chief Warns Iran War 'Could Spiral Beyond Anyone's Control'
"It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations," said António Guterres. "The stakes could not be higher."
Mar 06, 2026
After nearly a week of bloodshed in President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war on Iran—which critics argued violates not only the US Constitution but also the United Nations Charter—UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday demanded a return to negotiations.
Trump and Netanyahu launched "Operation Epic Fury" just a day after Badr Albusaidi, the foreign minister of Oman and mediator of recent nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, said on a prominent US news program that "we have already achieved quite a substantial progress" and "the peace deal is within our reach."
The Iranian government said Thursday that at least 1,230 people had been killed in Iran. The US-Israeli assault continued on Friday, as Guterres declared that "all the unlawful attacks in the Middle East and beyond are causing tremendous suffering and harm to civilians throughout the region—and pose a grave a risk to the global economy, particularly to the most vulnerable people."
"The situation could spiral beyond anyone's control," Guterres said. "It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations. The stakes could not be higher."
The UN chief's statement came amid reporting from Drop Site News that "US-Israeli missiles have hit an elementary school in Tehran—the fourth school in six days." The first strike, for which no government has taken responsibility but analyses suggest the United States is to blame, killed around 175 people, mostly children, at a girls' school in Minab on Saturday. Then, on Thursday, two boys’ schools southwest of Tehran were bombed.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also called for all parties "to give peace a chance," highlighting in a Friday statement that the war "has been spreading like wildfire" and caused significant damage in not only Iran and Israel, but "at least a dozen other countries, mostly in the Gulf, with risks of major economic and environmental ramifications across the world."
"The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze—but instead we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings, and escalation, that fuels it further," he continued. "Confusion has also been sown around international law—and some have openly derided the fundamental values of our common humanity."
While Türk directed his plea for deescalation at the warring governments, he also urged other states "to call clearly on those involved to pull back," arguing that "cool heads must prevail if we are to prevent further terror and devastation for civilians."
"Given the magnitude of this crisis," he said, "I call on heads of state and government around the world unequivocally to commit to defending international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and the UN Charter itself—we cannot afford for more powder kegs to ignite."
"Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint," Türk noted. "I am extremely concerned and worried about the latest developments following Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and Israel's heavy counterstrikes, as well as its extensive displacement orders that have already forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. I call for an immediate cessation of hostilities."
More than half a million people have fled their homes in southern Lebanon, and the death toll there this week is estimated to be over 130 people, as Common Dreams reported earlier Friday. Türk has denounced Israel's "blanket, massive displacement orders" in the country that are impacting hundreds and thousands of Lebanese.
As one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the US has veto power in that body. Considering those circumstances, the group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) this week urged the UN General Assembly to formally declare Trump and Netanyahu's assault on Iran a "war of aggression" in violation of the charter.
"No legal framework, international or domestic, can justify this US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran," DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. "This war is patently illegal, and it must be stopped."
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UN Leaders Warn Rule of Law Being Replaced by 'Rule of Force'
"We are living in a world where mass suffering is excused away... where humans are used as bargaining chips... where international law is treated as a mere inconvenience," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Feb 23, 2026
The secretary-general of the United Nations and the body's top human rights official did not call out world leaders by name as they warned that "impunity has become a contagion" among powerful governments at the opening of the UN Human Rights Council's annual session in Geneva on Monday.
But their comments appeared to allude to numerous recent actions by the Trump administration, whose officials have explicitly dismissed concerns about international law regarding the White House's foreign policy in recent months.
Secretary-General António Guterres warned global officials that "the rule of law is being out-muscled by the rule of force."
"This assault is not coming from the shadows. Or by surprise. It is happening in plain sight—and often led by those who hold the greatest power," said Guterres.
The leader's comments came nearly two months after President Donald Trump ordered an invasion of Venezuela, killing dozens of people, abducting President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and charging them with narcotics trafficking, and pushing to take control of the South American country's oil supply.
That operation as well as the United States' bombings of dozens of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in recent months—also ostensibly to fight "narcoterrorism"—have been violations of international law, according to numerous legal experts, with the former violating the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.
Trump officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, however, have claimed the US has the right to use military force against any country if doing so advances US interests.
"We are living in a world where mass suffering is excused away... where humans are used as bargaining chips... where international law is treated as a mere inconvenience," said Guterres on Monday. "Conflicts are multiplying and impunity has become a contagion. That is not due to a lack of knowledge, tools, or institutions. It is the result of political choices."
The UN has directly condemned other policies by the Trump administration in recent weeks, including Trump's executive order threatening tariffs on any country that provides Cuba with oil as it baselessly accused the island nation's communist government of harboring terrorists, and Guterres has suggested Trump's creation of a "Board of Peace" to govern Gaza is akin to "one power calling the shots."
Guterres mentioned just two specific conflicts: Russia's war on Ukraine and the "blatant violations of human rights, human dignity, and international law in the occupied Palestinian territory," where the US-backed Israel Defense Forces have been waging war on Gaza and Israeli settlers have been carrying out increased violent attacks in the West Bank as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government pushes to further illegally annex the territory and make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible.
"The current trajectory is stark, clear, and purposeful: The two-state solution is being stripped away in broad daylight," said Guterres. "The international community cannot allow this to happen."
Regarding Ukraine, which will enter its fifth year of war with Russia on Tuesday and where more than 15,000 civilians have been killed, Guterres said, "It is more than past time to end the bloodshed."
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, added in his own remarks that "domination and supremacy are making a comeback."
"A fierce competition for power, control, and resources is playing out on the world stage at a rate and intensity unseen for the past 80 years," said Türk. "The use of force to resolve disputes between and within countries is becoming normalized."
Türk highlighted how "the gears of global power are shifting", calling for people to band together to protect rights and create "a strong counterbalance to the top-down, autocratic trends we see today".
Some world leaders, he said, are operating as though "they are above the law, and above the UN Charter."
"They claim exceptional status, exceptional danger, or exceptional moral judgement to pursue their own agenda at any cost," he said. "They spread disinformation to distract, silence, and marginalize."
Türk also warned that some leaders appear to "weaponize their economic leverage"—an apparent reference to Trump's decision to drastically cut foreign aid funding and withdraw from dozens of UN organizations last month, putting the international body at risk of "imminent financial collapse," as Guterres said at the time.
"Humanitarian needs are exploding while funding collapses," said Guterres on Monday. "Inequalities are widening at staggering speed. Countries are drowning in debt and despair. Climate chaos is accelerating... Across every front, those who are already vulnerable are being pushed further to the margins. And human rights defenders are among the first to be silenced when they try to warn us."
"In this coordinated offensive, human rights are the first casualty," he added, urging world leaders to "not let power write a new rulebook in which the vulnerable have no rights and the powerful have no limits."
"Let this be the place that helps end the broad and brutal assault on human rights," said Guterres. "Because a world that protects human rights protects itself."
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Bucking 'Huge Consensus' at India Summit, Trump Admin Opposes Global AI Guardrails
To date, Trump’s most notable artificial intelligence regulation has been his executive order against “woke AI."
Feb 20, 2026
As delegates from dozens of nations attending a key artificial intelligence summit in India prepare to deliver a statement Saturday on how humanity should handle development of the rapidly evolving technology, the Trump administration stood out for opposing centralized regulation of generative AI.
"We are barreling into the unknown. AI innovation is moving at the speed of light—outpacing our collective ability to fully understand it—let alone govern it," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Friday during his address to attendees at the AI Impact Summit.
"AI does not stop at borders—and no nation can fully grasp its implications on its own," Guterres continued. "If we want AI to serve humanity, policy cannot be built on guesswork. It cannot be built on hype or disinformation. We need facts we can trust—and share—across countries and across sectors."
"That is why the United Nations is building a practical architecture that puts science at the center of international cooperation on AI," he added. "And it starts with the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence."
The panel—whose creation was recommended in a 2024 report authored by a high-level advisory board created by Guterres—is calling for a global AI governance framework and shared standards and monitoring mechanisms.
Looking forward to Saturday's statement, Indian Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters Friday that "there is huge consensus on the declaration, we are just trying to maximize the number" of endorsing nations, which he said he hoped would top 80. The United States apparently will not be one of them.
"As the Trump administration has now said many times, we totally reject global governance of AI," White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios said in New Delhi. "We believe AI adoption cannot lead to a brighter future if it is subject to bureaucracies and centralized control."
Although Republican US lawmakers' bid to slip a 10-year ban on state-level AI regulation into the massive One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump last July was shot down in the Senate, a bill introduced last September by Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.) would, if passed, impose a temporary moratorium on state laws regulating artificial intelligence.
To date, Trump’s most notable artificial intelligence regulation has been his July 2025 executive order aimed at preventing “woke AI.” His other AI-related edicts have rolled back regulations, including some meager steps taken under former President Joe Biden to bolster safety.
As was the case during the breakneck nuclear arms race during the Cold War, US officials have attempted to justify unfettered AI development by claiming that guardrails would slow progress and give adversaries like China an edge. And as with thermonuclear weapons during the Cold War, experts warn that a poorly governed race toward general artificial intelligence—a hypothetical advanced AI that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge of any subject as well as or better than a typical human—could pose an existential threat to humanity.
With so much uncertainty—and potential danger—alongside the unprecedented promise of AI, an increasingly aware public favors caution. Majorities of respondents to poll after poll say they want more, not less, AI regulation.
While very real, existential threats posed by AI are still many years off. However, there are pressing concerns over AI that are affecting the world today. Guterres noted Friday that AI can "deepen inequality, amplify bias, and fuel harm."
"As AI’s energy and water demands soar, data centers and supply chains must switch to clean power—not shift costs to vulnerable communities," he continued.
"We must invest in workers so AI augments human potential—not replaces it," Guterres stressed. "We must protect people from exploitation, manipulation, and abuse. No child should be a test subject for unregulated AI."
"Real impact means technology that improves lives and protects the planet," he argued. "So let’s build AI for everyone—with dignity as the default setting. Let us be clear: Science informs, but humans decide."
"Our goal is to make human control a technical reality—not a slogan," Guterres added. "And that requires meaningful human oversight in every high-stakes decision... And it requires clear accountability, so responsibility is never outsourced to an algorithm."
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UN Chief Guterres Warns of ‘Imminent Financial Collapse’ as Trump Pulls Funding
As the world's largest economy, the US provided nearly a quarter of the UN's funding. That is, until earlier this month, when Trump stripped hundreds of millions of dollars from dozens of treaties.
Jan 30, 2026
Weeks after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from dozens of United Nations organizations, the UN's chief warns that the UN is at risk of an "imminent financial collapse."
"The crisis is deepening, threatening program delivery and risking financial collapse. And the situation will deteriorate further in the near future," UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in a letter to ambassadors dated January 28, according to a Friday report from Reuters.
While he did not reference the United States explicitly, Guterres called out the fact that "decisions not to honor assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced," which almost certainly referenced Trump's pullout from at least 66 international treaties earlier this month, including 31 within the UN system.
With the stroke of a pen, Trump reneged on the US commitment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which it has been part of for more than 30 years. He also took the US out of the UN International Law Commission, the UN Democracy Fund, UN Oceans, UN Women, and dozens of other global bodies, deeming them "contrary to the interests of the United States."
As the world's largest economy, the US was the largest source of funding for the UN, providing 22% of its regular and peacekeeping budgets as of 2025—about $820 million per year.
The largest single financial cut as a result of the US pullout was the termination of dozens of grants worth approximately $377 million for the UN Population Fund, which focuses on family planning and preventing maternal mortality and sexual violence in developing nations. The organization is estimated to have prevented 39,000 maternal deaths and 18 million unwanted pregnancies in 2024, according to an annual report.
Warning that cash could run out by July, Guterres said, “Either all member states honor their obligations to pay in full and on time–or member states must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse."
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UN Chief: 2025 Was 'Profoundly Challenging Year for International Cooperation'
"We see powerful forces lining up to undermine global cooperation," António Guterres said at an event celebrating the UN General Assembly's 80th anniversary.
Jan 18, 2026
As the United Nations celebrates the 80th anniversary of its first General Assembly, Secretary-General António Guterres warned that militarism, fossil fuels, and tech-based disruption are threatening its mission of international collaboration at a time when it is urgently needed.
Guterres delivered his remarks on Saturday at the Methodist Central Hall in London, where the first UN General Assembly was held on January 10, 1946. The first UN Security Council meeting was held on January 17 of the same year, also in London.
"We see powerful forces lining up to undermine global cooperation," Guterres said.
He continued: "Last year, the UN reported that global military spending reached $2.7 trillion—over 200 times the UK’s current aid budget, or equivalent to over 70% of Britain’s entire economy. As the planet broke heat records, fossil fuel profits continued to surge. And in cyberspace, algorithms rewarded falsehoods, fueled hatred, and provided authoritarians with powerful tools of control."
"The General Assembly which we celebrate today exists because of a simple truth—humanity is strongest when we stand as one."
Guterres, whose term as secretary-general comes to an end at the close of 2026, reflected on the tumultuous decade he had presided over.
He began his term in 2017, in the wake of President Donald Trump's first electoral victory in the US and the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. That year, he also spoke in the same location, he said, and warned of the escalation of local conflicts, the rise of artificial intelligence and other new technologies, and how national sovereignty was being used as an excuse to disregard human rights.
"Over the last decade," he said, "all of this and more has unfolded at warp speed. The conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan have been vicious and cruel beyond measure; artificial intelligence has become ubiquitous almost overnight; and the pandemic poured accelerant on the fires of nationalism—stalling progress on development and climate action."
"If this period has taught us anything," he continued, "it is that our challenges are ever more borderless, and ever more interconnected. The only way to address them is together. And that requires a robust, responsive, and well-resourced multilateral system."
But that system, he said, was "under threat."
"2025 was a profoundly challenging year for international cooperation and the values of the UN," he said. "Aid was slashed. Inequalities widened. Climate chaos accelerated. International law was trampled. Crackdowns on civil society intensified. Journalists were killed with impunity. And United Nations staff were repeatedly threatened—or killed—in the line of duty."
While Guterres did not call out any particular country or leader, the Guardian noted that Trump's decision to dramatically slash US humanitarian funding for the UN last year is the leading cause of its budget troubles. Early in 2026, Trump also withdrew the US from key treaties including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Guterres' remarks came the same day that Trump threatened new tariffs against eight long-time European allies over their opposition to his desire for the US to acquire Greenland, further throwing international alliances into chaos.
The UN leader called on the body to adjust to a shifting global reality without abandoning its mission.
"The world of 2026 is not the world of 1946," he said. "As global centers of power shift, we have the potential to build a future that is either more fair—or more unstable. If we wish to make it more fair, it is critical that the international system reflects today’s reality."
Despite the challenges he described, Guterres called on members of the United Nations Association-UK (UNA-UK), which organized Saturday's meeting, to continue with their work.
"In this moment when the values of multilateralism are being chipped away, it is up to us—in our capacity as professionals, as voters, and as members of organizations like the UNA-UK—to take a stand. More than ever, the world needs civil society movements that are fearless and persistent—that make it impossible for leaders to look away."
"The General Assembly which we celebrate today exists because of a simple truth—humanity is strongest when we stand as one," he continued. "But that unity does not start in the General Assembly—it starts here, with people’s movements like yours."
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Israeli Raid on UNRWA Compound Slammed as 'Dangerous Precedent'
"This latest action represents a blatant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a United Nations member state to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises," said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.
Dec 08, 2025
United Nations officials and others strongly condemned Monday's raid by Israeli authorities on a facility run by the UN's office for Palestinian refugees in occupied East Jerusalem—an act one rights group decried as part of an ongoing effort "to undermine and ultimately eliminate" the lifesaving agency.
Israeli police and other officials forcibly entered the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) compound early Monday, pulling down a UN flag on the facility's roof and replacing it with an Israeli one. Israeli officials said the raid was ordered over unpaid taxes.
"They call it 'debt collection'—we call it erasure," Claudia Webbe, a socialist former member of British Parliament, said on social media. "Over 70,000 dead in Gaza, they now seek to kill the memory of the living. The occupation must end."
Police vehicles including motorcycles, trucks, and forklifts entered the compound, while communications were cut and furniture, computer equipment, and other property were seized from the facility, according to UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
"This latest action represents a blatant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a United Nations member state to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises," Lazzarini said in a statement.
"To allow this represents a new challenge to international law, one that creates a dangerous precedent anywhere else the UN is present across the world," he added.
Secretary-General António Guterres was among the other senior UN officials who condemned Monday's raid.
“This compound remains United Nations premises and is inviolable and immune from any other form of interference,” he said.
“I urge Israel to immediately take all necessary steps to restore, preserve, and uphold the inviolability of UNRWA premises and to refrain from taking any further action with regard to UNRWA premises, in line with its obligations under the charter of the United Nations and its other obligations under international law," Guterres added.
In late 2024, Israeli lawmakers approved a ban on UNRWA in Israel over disproven allegations that some of its staffers were Hamas members who took part in the October 7, 2023 attack. Those accusations led to numerous nations suspending financial support for UNRWA, although most of the countries have since restored funding. Israel has also sought to ban UNRWA from Gaza since early 2024.
Israeli forces have killed more than 370 UNRWA staff members since October 2023 and destroyed or damaged over 300 of the agency's facilities in Gaza. Lazzarini and others have also accused Israeli forces of torturing UNRWA staffers in a bid to force false confessions of Hamas involvement.
In October, the International Court of Justice—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel—found that UNRWA has not been infiltrated by Hamas as claimed by Israeli leaders.
Others also condemned Monday's raid, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), which called the action part of an effort "to undermine and ultimately eliminate a United Nations agency providing vital services to millions of Palestinian refugees."
"Governments should condemn Israel's unlawful moves against UNRWA and urgently act to stop further abuses," HRW added.
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