Is the UN past the point of no return? World leaders debate in New York next week

It’s time for UNGA 79!

Quick explanation: the United Nations General Assembly is an annual world leaders’ summit that has gone on for nearly eight decades since the international body’s founding in San Francisco. It’s a place for long speeches, private country-to-country whisper sessions, and group meetings on everything from regulating artificial intelligence to global conflicts.

This year features a UN once again caught in a debate over its relevancy while attempting to stem wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. All of which its Secretary General Antonio Guterres is keen to remedy.

“I have one overriding message today; an appeal to member states for a spirit of compromise,” Guterres implored on Wednesday.  

It is a refrain he and his predecessors have been saying for years. The UN’s 193 member states can’t decide on what to order for lunch, let alone find consensus on how to deal with the Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza, a major issue in Security Council meetings since the war began last October with militant group Hamas’ terror attacks in Israel.

The Security Council, the UN’s most powerful organ, has been dominated by just five veto-wielding countries (the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom) since its inception and has increasingly found itself at a stalemate.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine is part of a series of stunning developments that have rocked the UN system and runs contrary to what the international body was established to prevent.

But the past years have seen Russia block any pro-Ukraine resolution it doesn’t like, while the US stops the most sharp-edged resolutions aimed at Israel. Moves that only help to reinforce the idea that the West uses multilateral institutions to criticize its geopolitical adversaries.

The tone inside the Security Council has notably become rough, said one UN diplomat. “It has changed. I think it is harsher,” the diplomat added.

Sniping in the open council sessions often feature sharp-tongued exchanges between the big powers. Slovenia’s UN envoy Samuel ?bogar, who is also the current president of the Security Council, described the atmosphere of council meetings as “poisonous.”

The Council meets Friday to speak about exploding communications devices in Lebanon. That’s a new one amid hundreds of angry meetings on Gaza, Ukraine and the rest.

Taking the world stage

Still, diplomats are optimistic about the possibility of change. US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said this week: “it’s easy to fall into cynicism, to actually give up hope and to give up on democracy, but we can’t afford to do that.”

She is leading a US effort to expand the Security Council with two seats for Africa. However, new members would not have the crucial veto power that the the post WW2 five wield.

The veto allows permanent members, known as the P5, to block any resolution, ranging from peacekeeping missions to sanctions, in defense of their national interests and foreign policy decisions.

The council also has 10 non-permanent members elected to two-year terms – but some feel toothless without veto privileges.

“I am critical of the permanent members because they have a bigger responsibility than the elected (10) members,” Slovenia’s ?bogar said.

What the New York headquarters of the UN will provide next week is a forum for the Palestinians, Israelis, Ukrainians, Russians and others to speak their minds to the world and directly to each other.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to give a speech next Wednesday and appear at a special Security Council meeting.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – a former ambassador to the UN – may also be in attendance, speaking to the General Assembly later next week, which is expected to lead to a lot of walkouts from the assembly hall.

According to Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group, Netanyahu “hates the organization and he has a deep mistrust of it.”

New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to make his first showing at the General Assembly after his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, skipped last year’s meeting.

And once again the leaders of China and Russia will skip it all, sending high-ranking ministers to speak in their stead.

Climate, conflict, hunger and US politics

The amount of hot air from the speeches could turn the UN into one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases next week.

Climate change will be one of the biggest issues being discussed, with the General Assembly expected to hold a meeting on sea level rise on Wednesday. Look out for leaders from vulnerable island nations push for more action to tackle global warming.

The war in Sudan will also be a talking point, where famine was declared in a refugee camp near El Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state. The city has for months been besieged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a rebel group that took up arms against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in April 2023.

Millions have been forcibly displaced in the conflict and 25.6 million people in the country are facing acute hunger, according to UN agencies

The US presidential race also looms. A lot of diplomats are already concerned about who will be speaking for the US next year.

“I think in a lot of the private conversations around the General Assembly, the number one question will be: “what will [Republican presidential nominee Donald] Trump do to the organization?” Gowan said.

If the former US president is re-elected, the fallout for the UN won’t be pretty, he said, predicting some heavy budget slashing. The US and China are by far the biggest funders to the UN.

If you felt six days of speeches could glaze the eyeballs, there is another big summit right before UNGA.

Do not feel like you have to read on here, but it’s a meeting called the “Summit of the Future,” and naturally countries are still negotiating its final summit document, called the “Pact for the Future,” after months of talks.

The pact, now in its fourth revision, aims to provide a blueprint on how to tackle critical issues like conflicts, climate change, security council reform and the regulation of artificial intelligence.

The UN Secretary-General thinks the final document has the most significant reform in a generation. Another diplomat said “it should make the UN more relevant.” But getting 193 of anything to agree on anything is difficult; so is the task for the 193 members of the UN General Assembly.

Just think we almost made it through an UNGA story before a mention of New York traffic delays during UNGA. Watch out for those motorcades!

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