UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Facing conflict and crisis in a divided world, leaders gathering at the United Nations’ annual General Assembly this week face a challenge: not only to address the issues that matter most, but also to work together to modernize an international institution established after World War II so it can tackle future threats and challenges.
After sounding a global alarm about the survival of humanity and the planet, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a challenge a year ago: “Let us come to the Future Summit, announce a renewed commitment to the multilateralism that underpins the UN and many other international institutions, and begin to repair our aging global architecture to meet a rapidly changing world.”
The UN chief told reporters last week that the summit was “born out of the cold reality that international challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them,” pointing to “out-of-control geopolitical divisions,” “runaway” conflicts, climate change, inequality, debt and new technologies such as artificial intelligence with no guardrails.
The two-day summit began on Sunday, two days before high-level talks between world leaders begin at the sprawling U.N. complex in New York City.
The UN General Assembly approved the summit’s main outcome document, the 42-page “Future Pact,” on Sunday morning by a vote of 143 to 7, with 15 abstentions, against consideration of amendments proposed by Russia that would have significantly watered down the agreement, and General Assembly President Philemon Yang gaveled the deal into law.
The agreement is a blueprint for tackling global challenges, from conflict and climate change to artificial intelligence and reform of the United Nations and international organizations. Its impact depends on its implementation by the General Assembly’s 193 member states.
“Leaders need to ask themselves whether this will be a conference where they simply talk about greater cooperation and consensus, or whether they will show the imagination and conviction to actually build cooperation and consensus,” said Agnès Callamard, executive director of Amnesty International. “If they miss this opportunity, I shudder to think of the consequences – our collective future hangs in the balance.”
This is the biggest week of the year for the United Nations.
The summit is a prelude to this year’s high-level gathering, held annually in September. More than 130 presidents, prime ministers and monarchs are due to speak, along with dozens of ministers, and the issues raised at the summit – particularly the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, and the possibility of an escalation of the Middle East war – are expected to dominate their speeches and informal talks.
“There’s going to be a pretty clear disconnect between the Future Summit’s focus on expanding international cooperation and the reality of the UN’s failures in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan,” said Richard Gowan, director of the UN’s International Crisis Group. “These three wars are going to be the biggest talking points for much of this week.”
There was one notable moment at the opening of Congress on Tuesday: U.S. President Joe Biden’s likely final major appearance on the world stage, a platform he has enjoyed for decades.
“The most vulnerable people around the world are counting on us to step up, to make a difference, to bring hope,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters this week at an upcoming meeting.
She said the United States would focus on ending the “scourge of war” at the UN summit to address many global challenges. Around 2 billion people live in areas affected by conflict, she said.
Last September, the war in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took center stage at an international conference at the United Nations. But with the first anniversary of a deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, attention will surely be focused on the war in Gaza and the escalating violence across the Israeli-Lebanese border that now threatens to spread across the Middle East.
Iran backs both Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. Iran’s new president, Massoud Pezechkian, is due to address world leaders on Tuesday afternoon. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to speak Thursday morning, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to speak Thursday afternoon.
Zelenskiy will be in the spotlight twice: on Tuesday he will address a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council convened by the US, France, Japan, Malta, South Korea and Britain, and on Wednesday morning he is due to address the UN General Assembly.
They are trying to counter the “dismal world of statistics”
Slovenia, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, chose “Leadership for Peace” as the theme for Wednesday’s high-level meeting, asking the 15 member states why the UN body tasked with maintaining international peace and security is dysfunctional and how it can be improved.
“This event follows our observation that we are living in a world of grim statistics, with the number of ongoing conflicts at an all-time high and the number of casualties among civilians, humanitarians, medical workers and journalists at an all-time high,” Slovenia’s U.N. ambassador, Samuel Zbogar, told reporters, pointing to the number of people displaced by conflict reaching a record high of 100 million.
“The world is slipping into instability, into peace, into chaos, into a state of diminishing respect for rules,” Zbogal said. “Never has there been a greater need to rebuild trust to secure the future.”
The Security Council’s dysfunction is largely due to deep divisions among its five veto-wielding permanent members. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, supports Ukraine along with Britain and France. Russia has invaded Ukraine and is partnering militarily and economically with China, but China, in a report to a recent U.N. conference, reiterated its longstanding support for countries’ sovereignty without criticizing Russia.
French President Emmanuel Macron and new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will accompany Biden to the UN this week, but Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping will send their foreign ministers instead – neither President Putin nor Xi attended last year.
Summarising the issue this week, Mr Guterres warned that the world was witnessing “an increase in conflict and a sense of impunity”, where “every country, every military organisation, every militia feels they can do whatever they want because nothing will happen to them”.
“And the fact that nobody takes seriously the powers that be’s ability to solve the problem on the ground makes the level of impunity so high,” he said.
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Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press’ chief United Nations correspondent, has covered foreign affairs for more than 50 years.
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