COVID-19- UN Security Council should act Now Tan Sri Hasmy Agam and Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic-.

The COVID-19 situation is very worrying, indeed, alarming matter, not just as a global health and biosafety issue, but potentially as a global security challenge, too. While the pandemic is being dealt with by the World Health Organisation (WHO), along with other relevant United Nation Specialised Agencies (UN SA), the situation is deteriorating rapidly and could easily get out of control. This of course, if it is not effectively contained.

In such a (more and more likely) scenario, it would be engulfing the entire world, whose effects and impact would be akin to that of a Third world war, though initially of a different kind. We are amazed as to why the Security Council has not stepped in. It should have done so as to address the Covid-19 and surrounding scenery in the way it clearly deserves to be dealt with, given its devastating impact on the entire international community on almost every dimension, including international peace and security, which indisputably falls under its mandate under the UN Charter.

As the Council has often dealt with issues which are sometimes not ostensibly related to international or regional security, and of much less importance or urgency than this dreadful pandemic, we are puzzled, indeed alarmed, as to why it has chosen not to come to grips with the pandemic as a matter of the utmost urgency.

If the members of the Council, for their own internal reasons, have not felt compelled to do so, shouldn't the other members of the world body, individually or collectively as international or regional groupings, such as the European Union (EU), the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) - G-77, African Union (AU), or ASEAN, take the much-desired initiative to call on the Security Council to imperatively address this global pandemic, even as the WHO and other concerned UN agencies, much to their credit, are dealing with the issue from their own (narrow) perspectives - and yet rather limited mandate and resources.

In this regard, especially the EU, would be well-positioned to exert the much-need pressure on the UNSC, given the devastation that the Virus has wreaked on a number of its members, notably Italy and Spain, among others. Such an Urgent Meeting, indeed, Emergency Special Session of the UN Security Council at this point in time would be greatly applauded by the entire international community as it would accord the world body the leadership role that its members expect it to play at this most critical point in the post WWII...