The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, will try to persuade world leaders to extend their horizons beyond current wars by adopting a pact that he hopes will set a path for a new system of global governance that can prevent similar crises in the future.
Global leaders will gather in New York next week for the UN Summit of the Future, the centrepiece of this year’s launch of the annual United Nations general assembly.
Guterres had outlined an ambitious agenda covering artificial intelligence, groundbreaking UN security council reform, outer space, peace operations, climate change and financing development, but critics say that outline has not so much shrunk as become ever-less specific.
The toll of grinding negotiations and the need for consensus have underlined the divisions that have immobilised the UN for a decade, leading to a watered-down document called “pact for the future” due to be announced at a summit. Talks about the final draft, its five chapters and 58 actions must end on Saturday.
For more than a year Guterres had hoped that by confronting world leaders with the scale of the future challenges they collectively face, they could be persuaded to set aside some of those divisions about the present.
Guy Ryder, the UN undersecretary for policy who is at the helm of the process, insists the pact “can render the UN and the multilateral system more effective, participatory and networked”, but at briefings he struggled to convince reporters this was not another UN mission statement that will gather dust similar to the 2015 sustainable development goals summit or the Nelson Mandela peace summit in 2018.
At a press conference Guterres called for the current generation of peacebuilders to address challenges not visible when the UN was invented as a much smaller body 80 years ago.
“International challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them. We see out-of-control geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts – not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond. Runaway climate change. Runaway inequalities and debt. Runaway development of new technologies like artificial intelligence – without guidance or guardrails. And our institutions simply can’t keep up,” he said.
“Crises are interacting and feeding off each other – for example, as digital technologies spread climate disinformation that deepens distrust and fuels polarisation. Global institutions and frameworks are today totally inadequate to deal with these complex and even existential challenges.
“It is no great surprise. Those institutions were born in a bygone era for a bygone world.”
Few disagree with his analysis, but many question whether the pact provides new solutions, as opposed to aspirations.
Guterres insisted it represented progress, saying it offers “the strongest language on security council reform in a generation – and the most concrete step towards council enlargement since 1963. The first set of governance measures for new technologies, including artificial intelligence, in all their applications – with the UN at its centre. A major advance in reform of the international financial architecture with the most significant language yet strengthening the role of developing countries. A step change in financing the sustainable development goals and a commitment to advance our [sustainable development goals] stimulus, multiplying the resources available to developing countries.”
David Miliband, the chief executive of International Rescue Committee, said the pact did include practical proposals, such as an emergency platform allowing the UN to use its convening power to address global shocks such as pandemics. He said his test for the pact was “not novelty but strength, commitment and follow-through in a world where the nature of global risk has changed”.
But the negotiators have confronted familiar problems including cold war standoffs, shortage of cash and entrenched western reluctance to cede power to emerging powers – at the security council and in financial institutions. Seeking consensus among 193 countries has been no easy task for the two facilitators, Germany and Namibia. Nor has the backdrop of wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan helped the atmosphere.
Various critics have said the UN pact is not the right place to settle specific differences. Russia has opposed overspecific references to nuclear disarmament. Others have said the Cop conferences are the only place to address the climate crisis.
Richard Gowan, the UN specialist at the International Crisis Group, said there was a western reluctance to address the imbalances in the multilateral financial bodies. In a paper for Chatham House thinktank he observed: “The US and its allies argue that the UN is not the right space to negotiate complex financial issues. They say the World Bank and [International Monetary Fund] – where western powers still hold decisive shares of the votes – have a mandate to address these topics. A lot of diplomats from poorer states will be happy if world leaders make political commitments to sort out debt and development issues at the summit. But some hardliners, such as Pakistan, have argued that is not enough, and have even suggested cancelling the summit.”
There are some signs of movement on security council reform where three of the five permanent members on the 15-strong council are France, the UK and the US. The US has suggested creating two new permanent seats for African countries without veto power. But India and Brazil’s claims are also pressing. On the theme of expansion of the security council, an answer may eventually be found.
Ingenious solutions to reduce the veto of the permanent members abound, only to be crushed on the rock of objections from Russia, US and China, and a slow migration is visible to greater use of the larger general assembly where the veto does not apply. But the speed of reform does not match the speed with which the world – its technology and power dynamics – is changing.
At best Gowan argues the pact can provide a hook or staging post for UN reform, and for new issues such as AI to proceed at future summits.
Miliband said the UN system could only be as good as its members. He said: “Fragmentation of political power around the world is producing gridlock at the apex of the international system: the UN security council.”
