One of the less-publicized but important meetings held Sept. 22 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly was the Fourth Ministerial meeting of the “Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations.” The group, which according to the Russian Foreign Ministry now counts around 20 members, was formed in 2021 to defend the principles enshrined in the UN Charter of sovereignty, equality of states, non-interference in the internal affairs of states and peaceful settlement of disputes, against unilateralism and the so-called “rules-based order.” The four documents issued from their Sept. 22 meeting—a general political declaration and separate declarations on neo-colonial practices, unilateral coercive measures and food security—are clear that securing the universal human rights of food for all people and development for all nations was front-and-center in their discussions.
Representatives of the nations of Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mali, Nicaragua, the Russian Federation, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe participated in Friday’s meeting.
The Group of Friends announces that they are organizing for the UN General Assembly to hold a plenary debate on the urgency of forcing through “a complete and immediate end” to the use of sanctions against nations. Such measures assault “the right to development, food and health … constituting a direct and deliberate attack on development, representing today the greatest obstacle to the implementation of the development plans of nations subjected to such illegal measures,” the declaration against “unilateral extraterritorial economic measures” states.
Look at the scope of such sanctions, whose “new generation … are much more cruel and destructive than ever before"! These measures now “affect the daily life of over one-third of humanity … in more than thirty countries around the world.”
