UN, Reform & multilateralism September 2024-

UN High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence
UNGA Resolution 377
Multilateralism needs an overhaul.
– Here’s where to start
Multilateralism

Photo by the blowup on Unsplash

The Promise and Potential of the UN’s Summit of the Future
Negotiations have begun in earnest
Mark Leon Goldberg
(Global Dispatches) The United Nations is hosting a Summit of the Future in September during the annual opening the UN General Assembly. If all goes according to plan, world leaders will endorse a so-called “Pact for the Future” that will serve as a vehicle for enacting meaningful reforms to the United Nations.
The Summit of the Future is a big deal in UN circles — it is very much a force that is driving the agenda at the United Nations even as other crises may dominate the news cycle. Namibia and Germany are co-facilitating complex negotiations over what will be included in the pact.

79th Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 79)
10–24 September 2024

24 to 28 and 30 September
The general debate of the seventy-ninth session of the General Assembly
(High-Level Week)

9 October
Former foreign policy adviser to three UK PMs appointed as UN aid chief
Tom Fletcher becomes sixth Briton in a row to take up post despite calls for it to be subject to open competition
A former foreign policy adviser to three prime ministers including Gordon Brown has been appointed to the key post of UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs.
Tom Fletcher is the latest in a line of six UN humanitarian chiefs from the UK. The most recent was Martin Griffiths, who stepped down in the summer.
Fletcher’s appointment is controversial because there has been a push from the Middle East and elsewhere for the post no longer to be monopolised by a British candidate, and that all such senior UN postings should be subject to open competition.
More than 60 eminent diplomats and humanitarians wrote a letter to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, in April saying that at a time of unprecedented humanitarian crises it would be “quite wrong arbitrarily to restrict the search of a humanitarian coordinator to nationals of any one member state”.

27-28 September
Netanyahu’s uncompromising UNGA address
He spoke to a nearly empty General Assembly hall thanks to a walkout by a number of national delegations.
…Netanyahu’s stance was clear: Israel is acting in self-defense, and for that reason, it has no plans to stop fighting.
… He directly warned Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah, and other proxy groups in the region that have attacked Israel.
Within hours of his address on Friday, the Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut. By early Saturday, it had been confirmed that longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the strike.
Netanyahu, at UN, vows that Israel will keep ‘degrading Hezbollah’ until its objectives are met
(AP) — Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu signaled to the world from the United Nations on Friday that the multiple conflicts in the Middle East were far from resolved, and he vowed to continue battling the Lebanese Hezbollah and defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip until “total victory.”
Shortly after the prime minister spoke, blasts rocked the Lebanese capital Beirut and the Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah’s headquarters. The exact target wasn’t immediately clear, but it appeared to be significant enough to prompt Netanyahu to cut short his trip to New York by a day and make unusual travel on the Jewish Sabbath to get home.
Palestine and Lebanon’s leaders address UNGA ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival
Both speeches came as the US, France, and several Arab nations tried to use the tail end of the UN General Assembly to broker a temporary Israel to agree to a cease-fire with Lebanon.

26 September
Scandals and hope at the UN: Is it worth it?
Evan Solomon
What good is the United Nations in 2024?
(GZERO media) With wars raging, AI disrupting, inequality growing, and climate change accelerating, UN Secretary-General António Guterres says that “a powder keg risks engulfing the world.”
It’s easy to be cynical about the UN. As Brett Stephens once described it, “The U.N. is a never-ending scandal disguised as an everlasting hope. The hope is that dialogue can overcome distrust, and collective security can be made to work in the interests of humanity. Reality says otherwise.”
Scandals, failures, hypocrisies, and disappointments fly around the UN as prominently as the flags around its New York City headquarters, and Stephens waved many of them, from the failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda and the massacre in Srebrenica, to corruption in the oil-for-food program in Iraq. That was back in 2018.
Today there are even more, from the outrage surrounding allegations that some UNRWA workers worked with Hamas during the Oct. 7 massacres, to the obstructive dysfunctions of the five permanent members that have veto powers, which has proven to be a tragic obstacle to real global action in key conflicts, like Sudan. It’s hard to take the UN seriously when Iran gets a turn chairing its Human Rights Council Social Forum.
Even reading through the main agenda of the 79th General Assembly session, it’s understandable why some critics experience high-speed eye-rolling that rivals the backspin on a Roger Federer backhand. For example, one goal says: “Achieving global nuclear disarmament is the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.” How’s that going? Just yesterday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced that he was alerting his nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold needed to justify the use of nuclear weapons, a major escalation in the war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, less than 20% of the famed 17 Sustainable Development Goals are on track to be completed by 2030.
“The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost 10 stories today it wouldn’t make a bit of difference,” quipped John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN under former President George W. Bush. Many critics today still think he’s right.
Only pointing out the UN’s failures to solve complex global problems is like describing Ted Williams as a guy who failed to get a hit 60% of the time, instead of noting that a baseball player hitting .400 is one of the greatest feats in sports. It’s like dismissing venture capital investors as losers because at least 80% of their investments go bust, instead of focusing on the ones that succeed and more than make up for the other losses. In very hard challenges, a low success rate can still be a major victory.
Back in 1973, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber coined the term “wicked problem” to describe political, environmental, or security challenges that are uniquely difficult to solve and may have no single right answer. That’s where the UN is needed most, to pull in global voices that often disagree or are at war with each other and make a genuine attempt to solve wicked problems. That takes time.
The fact is, there are many UN successes, notably the World Food Programme, which helps over 80 million people, delivering food, medicines, and vaccines to countries in crisis. There are peace treaties and accords establishing norms and conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its most famous document.
This past week, there was a major success in global governance on AI with the Global Digital Compact, which was signed by most major countries except Russia. They agreed to everything from global standards on accessibility, use, and design, to the establishment of an international scientific panel, which will — like the IPCC does for climate — create a measuring tool and a road map for how AI governance might unfold. There is literally no other place in the world where this could happen.

24 September
World Leaders Confront Global Turmoil at U.N.
Hours after President Biden delivered his final U.N. speech, Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected in July, gave his first.
(NYT) Calls to end the Middle East conflict and wars in Ukraine and Sudan were expected to dominate the weeklong General Assembly session, but resolutions appear to be out of reach now for any of the three conflicts. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is grinding into its third year with no end in sight. And the ruthless civil war in Sudan has “unleashed one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” Mr. Biden said.
“Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than those that are pulling us apart,” Mr. Biden said. “I truly believe we’re in another inflection point of world history. For the choices we make today will determine our future for decades to come.”
Mr. Biden’s speech also covered the climate crisis, the urgent need for aid to strife-torn areas and the challenge of artificial intelligence. And it was a farewell of sorts. He has long spoken about the power of personal relationships as an instrument of diplomacy, and aides say he is likely to have a number of one-on-one meetings with fellow world leaders on the sidelines of the summit. The speech also came at a time of uncertainty, with the presidential election six weeks away, and Mr. Biden cast his decision to step down from the presidential ticket as a larger lesson for the world’s leaders, saying, “Some things are more important than staying in power.”
If Biden Wants to Save the UN, He Should Kill the Veto
Washington is hopping on the bandwagon to modernize the Security Council. But it refuses to change the thing that matters most.
By Andreas Kluth
(Bloomberg) The whole world, literally, knows that the United Nations and its Security Council are anachronistic, unfair if not downright rigged, generally dysfunctional and in dire need of reform.
On paper, such an upgrade is on the agenda this week, as the General Assembly convenes in New York for the 79th time. In a feat of communication last attempted in Babel, the 193 member states have approved an optimistically titled “Pact for the Future.” Now they have to figure out what that means.

23-24 September
‘The nervousness in New York was palpable’
Michael Bröning on the UN Pact for the Future, Germany’s role in the negotiations and Russia’s last-minute attempts to disrupt them
(IPS) In New York, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted the Pact for the Future. Has multilateralism been saved?
Well, at least there is a sign of life. It really would have sent a rather dramatic signal if the negotiations on the Pact for the Future had failed after years of preparation. But, of course, the result is a document of ambivalence. After all, we are experiencing a time in which members of the Security Council are openly hostile towards each other. And now these same states are adopting a document that eulogizes cooperation and the United Nations Charter. Naturally, it is right to ask what this language means in reality.
One thing is clear: this document, too, reflects the geopolitical tensions and the ongoing dysfunctionalities of the United Nations in times of confrontation. Even a ‘Pact for the Future’ is rooted in the present. In this present, however, the signs are still pointing to conflict. And the plain truth is that the United Nations has not yet been able to act as a game changer in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Of course, this is not going unnoticed — nor are Western double standards when dealing with these conflicts. Nevertheless, the broad approval across continents also shows that there is a broad base for multilateralism and cooperation, and that, too, should not be underestimated.

Mark Leon Goldberg: These Stories Will Drive the Agenda During UN Week
…some of the stories I believe will drive the agenda in New York during what is known as “High-Level Week” at the UN. This includes two substantive meetings that are not likely to get the attention they deserve: one on antimicrobial resistance and another on sea-level rise
Drama at the Summit of the Future
On Sunday morning, as delegates gathered to vote on the Pact for the Future, Russia sought to introduce its poison-pill amendment. But rather than hold a divisive vote on this amendment, The Republic of Congo stood up with its own proposal: to evade the Russian amendment altogether and instead vote on a motion to proceed. This was significant because Congo is the rotating head of the African Union—not exactly a Western imperialist institution! Congo’s procedural craftsmanship led to a lopsided vote of 143-7, with 15 abstentions. (The seven against: Russia, Iran, Belarus, Nicaragua, North Korea, Syria, and Sudan.) Russia’s proposal was duly ignored.
Moments after the vote concluded, the President of the General Assembly called for a vote by acclamation to adopt the Pact for the Future. The room erupted in applause soon after. No country (including Russia) raised any formal objections at this point. The Pact for the Future was therefore adopted, and by consensus.
An UNGA Amid Global Crises
…we are in the midst of an escalating series of provocations between Israel and Hezbollah. … Expect speeches from Netanyahu and Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, to draw considerable attention. There will be a Security Council meeting on this crisis on Friday, which notably was not even on the Council’s schedule as of last week.
A meeting on Ukraine has long been on the Security Council’s agenda this coming week, on Tuesday afternoon. I would expect Biden to attend, given that the meeting is scheduled following his farewell UNGA address that morning. Don’t expect any major outcomes from this meeting, but do expect sparks. I imagine Zelenskyy will attend, as well as a representative from Russia.
The third crisis top of mind for many diplomats this week is Sudan. This is currently the largest humanitarian catastrophe by the numbers, and the UN continues to issue warnings of a growing food and famine crisis. Notably, one of the generals involved in this war, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is also the titular head of state. He’ll be addressing UNGA, and I expect his speech will be cringeworthy, to say the least. There will be side events on Sudan, potentially including extra scrutiny on the United Arab Emirates’ role in fueling this conflict.

19-20 September
Mark Leon Goldberg: What if UNGA Takes Place Amidst a Widening Regional War in the Middle East?
Bad timing
One of the first podcast interviews I did after the October 7th attacks was with Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. I asked him a question on everyone’s mind at the time: how could Israel, with its vaunted intelligence and security apparatus, be so vulnerable to this kind of terrorist attack?
I’ve been thinking about his answer in recent days. Citing the prevailing conventional wisdom of the Israeli security establishment prior to October 7th, he said, “the serious people don’t deal with the Palestinian file. The Palestinian file is a mowing-the-lawn maintenance file. Serious people deal with the Iranian file.” The implication here is that top talent and energy were focused on threats from Iran, and by extension, its proxy Hezbollah. Hamas in Gaza was not deemed worthy of such attention.
Over the last week, we’ve been seeing the logical extension of this mindset play out in Lebanon—and in the process, potentially ignite a broader regional war.

What to watch for at the 2024 UN General Assembly
Brookings scholars weigh in
Brahima Sangafowa Coulibaly, Landry Signé, George Ingram, Priya Vora, Rebecca Winthrop, Caren Grown, Belinda Archibong, Brad Olsen, Jennifer L. O’Donoghue, and Sweta Shah
(Brookings) A multilateral system fit for the challenges of the 21st century
The highlight of the September meetings of the United Nations General Assembly will undoubtedly be the Summit of the Future to forge a new international consensus on “how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future.” At the summit, the hope is that the global community will endorse the Pact for the Future, the road map to fit the multilateral system to address the challenges of the 21st century.
… While the current multilateral system has served the world well for the past 80 years, it is increasingly unable to tackle rising inequality, job insecurity, environmental degradation, and escalating social and geopolitical tensions. As documented by the midpoint review of the Sustainable Development Goals during last year’s UNGA, despite some success, shortfalls in progress are widespread.
There is a growing consensus and demand for profound reforms. Through a series of studies and convenings initiated by the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution, numerous scholars and think tanks from the Global North and Global South have proposed recommendations to modernize various multilateral institutions, including the United Nations Security Council, the World Trade Organization, and the global financial architecture comprising the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Implementing these recommendations will equip the multilateral system to deliver on the aspirations in the Pact for the Future.

18-19 September
The UN unveils plan for AI
(GZERO media) Overnight, and after months of deliberation, a United Nations advisory body studying artificial intelligence released its final report. Aptly called “Governing AI for Humanity” it is a set of findings and policy recommendations for the international organization and an update since the group’s interim report in December 2023.
“As experts, we remain optimistic about the future of AI and its potential for good. That optimism depends, however, on realism about the risks and the inadequacy of structures and incentives currently in place,” the report’s authors wrote. “The technology is too important, and the stakes are too high, to rely only on market forces and a fragmented patchwork of national and multilateral action.”
The HLAB-AI report asks the UN to begin working on a “globally inclusive” system for AI governance, calls on governments and stakeholders to develop AI in a way that protects human rights, and it makes seven recommendations.
Can the UN get the world to agree on AI safety?
Artificial intelligence has the power to transform our world, but it’s also an existential threat. There’s been a patchwork of efforts to regulate AI, but they’ve been concentrated in wealthy countries, while those in the Global South, who stand to benefit most from AI’s potential, have been left out. Can the United Nations come together at this year’s General Assembly to agree on standards for a safe, equitable, and inclusive AI future?

18 September
UN members back resolution directing Israel to leave occupied territories
(The Guardian) General assembly votes overwhelmingly in favour of Palestinian resolution after ICJ ruling in July
In a symbolic step exposing Israel’s continued international isolation, the UN general assembly has voted overwhelmingly to direct Israel to leave the occupied Palestinian territories within a year.
The non-binding vote follows a historic advisory ruling in July by the international court of justice (ICJ) urging Israel to cease “its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as soon as possible and stop all settlement activity there immediately”.
Wednesday’s resolution was passed by 124 votes to 14 with 43 abstentions, prompting applause across the general assembly chamber in New York. The UK and Australia abstained while the US voted against.
Canada abstains from UN motion calling on Israel to end occupation of Gaza, West Bank
Canada abstained Wednesday from a high-profile United Nations vote demanding that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank within a year.

17 September
What to expect at UNGA
John Haltiwanger
(GZERO media) …As world leaders gather in New York, the wars raging in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan will be major topics, as will issues ranging from climate change to nuclear disarmament.
The UN has often appeared powerless in the face of such crises. The beginning of this year’s session offers an important opportunity for the UN to chart a new way forward and challenge critics who feel it’s a bloated, self-important, impotent institution. Along these lines, one of the issues on the agenda is whether to reform the UN Security Council — a key body focused on preserving peace around the world. This could include adding African countries as permanent members to the council.

10 September
Ten Challenges for the UN in 2024-2025
The war in Gaza has highlighted how debilitating major-power division can be for the UN. Yet the organisation is not hamstrung: in several crises around the world, diplomats can agree on modest initiatives to curb violence and shore up stability.
(International Crisis Group) Leaders will meet at the UN General Assembly at a bleak moment. The war between Israel and Hamas has cast a long shadow over the world organisation, and many of its members worry that it is failing to fulfill its core mandate of preserving peace and security.
Why does it matter? Fraying geopolitical relations and resource gaps are reducing the UN’s influence. But the organisation is still deeply involved in mediation, peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts – often in very troubled settings where the chances of success are low and no other state or multilateral body can play the same role.
What should be done? UN members should beef up the organisation’s mediation efforts in cases such as Sudan and Myanmar, in addition to reinforcing its presence in Gaza. At an institutional level, there are opportunities for reforms to UN peacekeeping, peacebuilding and sanctions. The organisation must also prepare for new leadership in Washington.
Dumbarton Oaks: creating a new world order
Andrew Ehrhardt
(Engelsberg Ideas) Eighty years ago, representatives of the soon-to-be victorious allied powers gathered outside Washington DC to lay the foundations of the United Nations. Examining how delegates dealt with the enduring dilemmas of internationalism provides a lesson in how to deal with our global future.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, where diplomats from the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China met to negotiate a settlement of the postwar world. Their deliberations and eventual agreement laid the foundation for what would become, by the summer of 1945, the United Nations Organisation.
Though the contemporary world looks very different from that of 1944, there are some distinct echoes from that tumultuous period in world history. Major tensions between the great powers in Europe and Asia, along with emergent regional conflicts and rapid technological innovations, have upended our notion of a stable international system.
In this period of uncertainty and transition, scholars, analysts, and leading statesmen and women are questioning whether the United Nations, and international organisations more broadly, remain fit for purpose.

9 September
The UN chief calls the death and destruction in Gaza the worst he’s seen
(AP) — The U.N. chief said Monday that the United Nations has offered to monitor any cease-fire in Gaza and demanded an end to the worst death and destruction he has seen in his more than seven-year tenure.
Secretary-General António Guterres said in an interview with The Associated Press that it’s “unrealistic” to think the U.N. could play a role in Gaza’s future, either by administering the territory or providing a peacekeeping force, because Israel is unlikely to accept a U.N. role.
But he said “the U.N. will be available to support any cease-fire.” The United Nations has had a military monitoring mission in the Middle East, known as UNTSO, since 1948, and “from our side, this was one of the hypotheses that we’ve put on the table,” he said.
Palestinians’ UN proposal demands Israel leave Gaza and the West Bank in 6 months
(AP) — The Palestinians have circulated a draft U.N. resolution demanding that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the West Bank within six months.
The proposed General Assembly resolution, which was obtained by The Associated Press, follows a ruling by the top United Nations court in July that said Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon denounced the resolution and described it as a “reward for terrorism.” He called for the resolution to be rejected.
22 August
Palestinians plan UN resolution enshrining court demand for Israel to end occupation with time frame

The UN General Assembly Speaker Schedule is Here!
Who’s speaking at UNGA. And when.
(Global Dispatches) The address by the U.S. President always sets the tone for UNGA. Some other interesting and notable speeches to track include Zelenskyy on Wednesday morning, Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, and Netanyahu on Thursday. Keir Starmer will make his UN debut on Friday. He’s not someone with much of a foreign policy profile, so it will be interesting to see how he frames some of the big issues of the day. (See Comment below)

4 September
Mark’s Personal UNGA 2024 Preview
Some stories I’ll be following during UN Week
Mark Leon Goldberg
(Global Dispatches) The Summit of the Future kicks off “High-Level Week” on September 21 and 22, with the expected adoption of three outcome documents intended to outline a new set of reforms aimed at making the UN more responsive to future global challenges.  The Summit of the Future is the culmination of years of diplomacy and discussions focused on enhancing the UN’s ability to tackle current and future challenges. While the Summit of the Future hasn’t garnered much attention outside the UN bubble, within UN circles, it carries a level of significance that is hard to overstate.
22 August
Everything You Need to Know About the Summit of the Future
It’s a really, really big deal for the UN
Mark Leon Goldberg
(Global Dispatches) The significance of the Summit of the Future is a somewhat tricky to convey. On the one hand, it is hard to overstate how much of a big deal the Summit of the Future for the United Nations, which bills it as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.” On the other hand, the Summit of the Future has not really penetrated outside the UN bubble. Not yet, at least.
It is truly an occasion to revitalize the UN in a time of great global turmoil and restore trust in international cooperation as a means of solving common global challenges. That may sound impractically idealistic, but the Summit itself is the culmination of years of discussions, negotiations and diplomacy around concrete policies and reforms intended to make the UN more responsive to future global challenges.

2 September
Peacekeepers Need Peacemakers
What the UN and Its Members Owe the Blue Helmets
By Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Undersecretary-General for Peace Operations
(Foreign Affairs) …multiple studies have shown that peacekeeping missions are one of the most effective tools the UN Security Council has at its disposal to prevent the expansion of war, stop atrocities, and make it more likely that peace agreements endure.
Today, however, the challenges facing UN Peacekeeping are greater than ever. Currently, the United Nations has 11 peacekeeping missions deployed around the globe—missions that are making extraordinary contributions to containing violence amid a surge in conflict worldwide. In the Golan Heights and Cyprus, peacekeepers are monitoring and preserving cease-fires. In the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan, they are protecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable civilians. In the context of escalating exchanges of fire between Israel and Lebanon following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the UN Peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon has worked to help avert escalations beyond those that have occurred throughout the ten-month conflict. Preserving cease-fires, protecting civilians, and containing violence are among the intermediate goals of peacekeeping, which also include mediating local conflicts and strengthening local institutions.
But the ultimate objectives of all peacekeeping operations are political. Such operations’ primary goal is to resolve conflicts by helping quarreling parties reach and implement the kind of agreements that help establish durable peace that outlasts the presence of peacekeepers. As the head of the UN’s peacekeeping efforts, however, I can attest that recent developments make it extremely challenging for UN Peacekeeping missions to accomplish these long-term goals. More and more, conflict is driven by armed groups that operate across national borders, weaponize cheap technologies such as improvised explosive devices, spew hate speech online, engage in terrorism and transnational organized crime, and often lack any political ambition beyond sparking disorder. Although the practice of peacekeeping must adapt to meet these daunting challenges, there is only so much peacekeeping can do on its own.