The African National Congress (ANC) said on Tuesday that multilateralism is under immense pressure but is needed now more than before, albeit in a renewed sense.

The party said the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, particularly the inability of multilateral bodies and great powers to end these, demonstrated a larger crisis of an international order that the party said lacked a common moral vision for humanity and that highlighted “a dire need for visionary leaders to step up and pull humanity from the brink”.

The ANC stressed its belief that the South African government had been unrelenting in the fight to defend the cause of peace, justice, solidarity and multilateralism in the international arena.

“Our unwavering commitment to a rules-based international order, justice and international law are expressed in our recent case at the International Court of Justice,” it said.

The ANC said government’s defence of Palestinians was at the same time an assertion of the rights and sovereignty of all oppressed peoples worldwide.

“Our position is a strong call for a global fight for human rights and the right to self-determination; as well as a categorical rejection of wars of aggression as legitimate means of solving political problems,” it said.

The ANC congratulated the UK and France for their respective successful elections in the past week.

“We send a special word of congratulations to the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and the New Popular Front in France. The new administrations in the UK and France will assume office in the context of an international situation that is fraught with major geopolitical tensions and further humanitarian risks attached to those,” said the ANC.

It highlighted that poverty and inequality had been persistent and were putting strain on democratic politics the world over.

The party noted that the global situation demanded a fundamental rethink on the part of European leaders on how they wished to engage with the world and be received.

It highlighted that ongoing discussions about climate justice, and the distribution of climate responsibility between the developed and developing nations, were among the pressing challenges.

The major issue was how developed States should meaningfully shoulder the greatest responsibility for climate change, and consider the known history of the combined but uneven development of the world, the ANC stated.

“Similarly, the recent developments in the Sahel region of Africa raise important questions for European governments, especially the new French administration, to consider with respect to their foreign policy approaches,” the party said.

It highlighted that a new global consensus for peace must be forged and ought to address itself to the root causes of conflict.

The ANC said the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it said brute force and displacement continued to devastate communities, exemplified such conflict whose roots require attention.