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

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.

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.