Video | Four key questions about Article 99 of the UN Charter invoked by Guterres in the Israel-Gaza war

UN Secretary-General António Guterres' invocation of Article 99 of the UN Charter over the war in Gaza has provoked an intense diplomatic response from Israel, which has levelled harsh accusations against him for calling for a ceasefire in his war against Hamas. The article says that the secretary-general "may call the attention of the Security Council to any matter which, in his opinion, may endanger the maintenance of international peace and security." To interpret the spirit of this legal text and contextualize its use by Guterres, two experts, María José Sánchez (Doctoral Researcher at the Department of International Law of the Faculty of Law of the Complutense University of Madrid) and Gustavo Díaz Matey (Professor of International Relations at the UCM) answer four key questions: Why is the invocation of Article 99 so important? What are the consequences of invocation? Why hasn't Guterres invoked it in other conflicts such as the one in Ukraine? And when was it invoked before, and what was it used for then?