International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace (24/04)

The International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, established by resolution A/RES/73/127 of the UN General Assembly in December 2018, is celebrated annually on April 24.

The main goals pursued by the UN in establishing a new holiday were: the desire to popularize any initiatives for the benefit of peace and peaceful methods of resolving conflicts of various levels and nature, ranging from political, ideological and economic confrontation, to confrontation of a religious or ethno-national nature.

Unfortunately, the modern world continues to witness more and more points of confrontation in various parts of the globe. Created with the aim of maintaining peace and preventing wars and military conflicts, the UN initially implied diplomacy as its main tool. Only a multilateral approach to resolving any conflict, along with the development of methods for overcoming contradictions that take into account the interests of the warring parties, can prevent the resumption of conflict, both in the present time and in the long term.

Thus, the new holiday is intended to unite society, show the obvious advantages of diplomatic methods of resolving conflicts, as well as the downside of the settlement process associated with bloodshed, innocent victims, devastation and deprivation – as a consequence of refusing the opportunity to sit down at the negotiating table and trying to resolve controversial problematic issues with the help of force.

A sore point of modern diplomacy today is the policy of double standards, when declared values and goals in the name of achieving peace and justice become a cover for solving narrow national or state problems, or achieving the goals of certain financial structures that play the role of invisible but key players in politics. At the same time, this policy leads to the fact that methods of conflict resolution in one case, recognized as legal and the only correct, obviously expected and applied in a similar situation, are considered illegal, contrary to international legal norms and principles.

Freeing diplomacy from the policy of double standards today should become one of the most important tasks of international politics and such international structures as the UN.

The UN invites all Member States and observers of the United Nations, organizations of the system and other international and regional organizations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organizations and individuals, to duly observe this International Day and explain, including through educational activities and activities to raise public awareness, the benefits of multilateralism and diplomacy for peace.

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