Original dra* for “L’ONU Bouge Encore” (“The UN is s<ll alive”)

Edited version published in Le Monde Diploma6que, June 2024

h=ps://www.monde-diploma6que.fr/2024/06/GOWAN/67077

Richard Gowan

Ambassadors and interna.onal officials at the United Na.ons can agree on at least two things.
One is that the world organiza.on needs serious reforms to deal with global challenges, ranging
from climate change to the regula.on of Ar.ficial Intelligence. The other is that, in today’s tense
global poli.cal climate, the UN’s members will find it extremely difficult – or perhaps impossible
- to agree on even limited reforms. Diplomats in New York are preparing for a leaders-level
“Summit of the Future” in September that is meant to be an opportunity to overhaul the
mul.lateral system. But the nego.a.ons may just end up emphasizing interna.onal divisions.

The Summit is the brain child of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The former Portuguese
prime minister is oSen surprisingly cri.cal of the organiza.on he now manages. He believes that
the UN is inefficient and has not kept pace with shiSs in science and the global economy. Guterres
is fascinated by big ques.ons about humanity’s long-term future, and feels that the UN should
not only tackle day-to-day crises but also work on safeguarding the planet for future genera.ons.

Guterres set out this thinking – and called for the Summit of the Future – in a report en.tled “Our
Common Agenda” in 2021. This was in part a reflec.on on the impact of COVID on the global
system. Guterres hoped that the experience of the pandemic, a truly global crisis, would convince
world leaders of the need for greater solidarity and coopera.on. From the star.ng point, the
report highlighted a series of domains, including not only global health but also topics like A.I.
and the management of outer space, where mul.lateral frameworks are weak or simply lacking.
He pitched the Summit of the Future to address these global governance gaps and “forge a new
global consensus on what our future should look like, and what we can do today to secure it.”

The Common Agenda is a conceptually impressive piece of work, but if Guterres hoped the
pandemic could be a spring-board for greater interna.onal solidarity, events quickly derailed that
vision. Russia’s all-out aggression against Ukraine reshaped the diploma.c landscape at the UN,
as the Security Council and General Assembly became locked in debates over the war. Hamas’s
assault on Israel on 7 October, and the ensuing Israeli campaign in Gaza, have also revived long-
standing riSs between Western and non-Western powers at the UN. In late 2023, Arab diplomats
asked how the UN could have a Summit of the Future if Pales.nian children have no future at all.

Distracted by these geopoli.cal flare-ups, many diplomats have struggled to focus on the
Secretary-General’s agenda. Those represen.ng small na.ons with limited resources oSen
complain that they also lack the exper.se to grapple with problems such as mul.lateralism in
outer space. Some representa.ves from developing countries have been ac.vely suspicious of
the Summit process, worrying that it is an effort to draw aaen.on away from exis.ng UN priori.es
such as poverty eradica.on and limi.ng global warming. This accusa.on is unfair -- Guterres has
made climate change one of his flagship issues -- but UN officials acknowledge that they could
have done a beaer job explaining the complex agenda to member states to reduce confusion.

Yet not even major wars can stop UN processes from grinding forward, and once Guterres has
seeded the idea of the Summit of the Future, diplomats got to work preparing for the event.
Germany and Namibia took on the thankless task of facilita.ng these prepara.ons. This January
they released a draS “Pact for the Future” for leaders to endorse in September. Although packed
with UN jargon, this echoed Our Common Agenda by emphasizing the importance of coopera.on
on science and technology and the interests of future genera.ons (diplomats have also been
working on stand-alone agreements on these issues as supplements to the pact). But is very far
from being the last word on what the Summit of the Future should agree. While the German-
Namibian draS pact was a mere 19 pages long, other UN members suggested line-by-line edits
that resulted in a 250-page long text as the basis for further nego.a.ons. Even veteran UN
diplomats who have sat through previous painful textual nego.a.ons say that this is a monster.

[NB: Since this piece was draPed, Germany and Namibia issued a shorter revised draP pact that
provides a good basis for nego6a6ons. But it has not changed my basic assessment below.]

While diplomats are now doomed to spend months ironing out this text – which is supposed to
be adopted by consensus -- the most important and difficult topics for nego.a.on are becoming
clear. For many UN members, the Secretary-General’s long-range vision of interna.onal
coopera.on has to take second place to more immediate economic and security concerns.

For developing countries, the top issue is the interna.onal economic system. Roughly 70 states –
over one third of the UN’s membership – are currently struggling with unsustainable levels of
debt. The economic knock-on effects of COVID-19, Russia’s war on Ukraine and climate-change
related shocks have pushed these poor and middle-income states close to default. For their
representa.ves in New York, the best outcome of the Summit of the Future would be for the U.S.,
EU and other wealthier countries to agree on reforms to the IMF and World Bank’s lending
policies that would alleviate their distress. They would also like to see altera.ons to the
governance of the interna.onal financial ins.tu.ons that would allow them more say over their
decision-making in future. While U.S. officials insist that the Bank and IMF’s governing boards
must ul.mately make these decisions, and the UN cannot overrule them, Western diplomats
acknowledge that some sort of progress on financing is necessary for the Summit to succeed.

There are differences among developing countries over how to nego.ate on these issues. Many,
including some of those suffering most economically, hope to sort out a pragma.c bargain that
meets their immediate needs. But a more asser.ve sub-set of non-Western states including
Venezuela and Pakistan – coordina.ng with Russia – would like to expand the discussion to
highlight the damage done by unilateral U.S. and EU sanc.ons to the global economy. This
hardline bloc has held up previous UN nego.a.ons on development issues over sanc.ons. There
is a risk that they will do the same to the Pact, poten.ally aliena.ng poor states that want a deal.
While the Summit could s.ll result in a compromise on economic ques.ons, it is less clear that
diplomats will find much common ground over peace and security issues. For many UN members,
the failure of the Security Council to act on either Ukraine or Gaza, coupled with Russia’s repeated
use of nuclear threats, demonstrated the bankruptcy of the interna.onal security architecture.
For some powers, such as Brazil and India, the Summit is an opening to press their long-standing
arguments that they deserve permanent seats on the Security Council. For those countries that
favor the aboli.on of nuclear weapons, it could be a chance to reboot disarmament processes.

There are serious obstacles to progress on these files. Austria and Kuwait have been leading a
stand-alone strand of nego.a.ons on Security Council reform, and the Biden administra.on has
also said the Council needs moderniza.on. But countries that dislike the idea of reform such as
China – which dislikes the idea of Japan or India winning permanent seats in the body – are likely
to ensure that the Summit makes liale or no progress on the issue. The best possible outcome
could be a “process win”, such as a formal agreement to accelerate future discussions of reform,
or to set a nominal deadline for their comple.on. There is no chance of the U.S., China or Russia
agreeing to any meaningful limits on the use of their vetoes in the Council. When it comes to
nuclear weapons, Russia has already signaled that it is opposed to the Summit saying anything of
substance on arms control and disarmament. The other nuclear powers quietly agree on this.

If the Summit of the future says anything of note on peace and security issues, it is more likely to
relate to the organiza.on’s role in peacekeeping. Diplomats in New York are currently worried
that the UN’s blue helmet missions can no longer deal with unstable states. Mali’s decision to
order the UN to close the peacekeeping mission on its territory (MINUSMA) in June 2023
magnified their concerns. The draS Pact includes a call for some sort of inter-governmental review
of the strengths and weaknesses of UN opera.ons. It also includes proposals to strengthen the
UN Peacebuilding Commission, a sort of junior cousin of the Security Council that cooperates with
vulnerable states to address security problems without resor.ng to military means or sanc.ons.

Although these are worthy ideas to support the UN’s day-to-day peace work, they are not the
visionary thinking about mul.lateralism that Secretary-General Guterres envisaged when he
ini.ated the Summit process. A number of UN officials have told me that Guterres wanted to
avoid discussions geing bogged down on peacekeeping, as he is personally skep.cal of the value
of the blue helmets. But in a period when the ability of the UN to play any role in peace and
security at all seems doubjul, it may be natural for diplomats to cling onto these familiar topics.

Some of Guterres’ more far-reaching thinking has, however, already had some influence at the
UN. His emphasis on Ar.ficial Intelligence in par.cular has started to resonate with UN members.
While Guterres has suggested the crea.on of a new interna.onal agency to regulate A.I., big
players in the A.I. business such as the U.S. and China are not yet willing to go that far (and even
some experts on A.I. who favor greater interna.onal coopera.on say it’s too early for ins.tu.on-
building). Nonetheless, the Biden administra.on moved to shape debate on the theme this year
by tabling a General Assembly resolu.on on the uses of A.I. to advance economic development,
a topic well-calibrated to gain wide support in New York. The resolu.on passed by consensus, and
now other UN members including China are rumored to be planning similar ini.a.ves. The
Summit of the Future may not make decisive choices about how the UN deals with new
technologies, but it could help start longer term conversa.ons about coopera.on in this space.

Ul.mately, many diplomats will be happy if they get through the Summit without too many major
arguments. ASer more than two years of draining debates on Ukraine, and fierce disputes over
Gaza since October, a lot of representa.ves in New York worry that the UN’s global reputa.on is
in decline. Diplomats from all regions and bloc admit that their poli.cal masters back in their
capitals view the UN with moun.ng sceptcism. When the UN agreed a treaty on protec.ng
biodiversity on the high seas last year, ambassadors in New York expressed relief because – in
addi.on to being good news for fish – it showed that mul.lateral diplomacy can s.ll deliver
something solid. Geing an agreement on the Pact of the Future would be a similar small victory.

Yet it is also possible that poli.cal tensions will further complicate the Summit. If the war in the
Middle East drags on escalates, or if Russia launches a major offensive in Ukraine this summer, it
will be hard for diplomats to cut off nego.a.ons on the Pact for the Future from the crises of the
day. UN officials also fret that the Summit will come less than two months prior to the U.S.
elec.ons. If Donald Trump appears to have a good chance of victory, many UN members will
wonder whether it is worth making compromises with the U.S. that the next administra.on might
declare void, much as Trump previously walked out of the Paris climate agreement sealed by
President Obama. Some even wonder whether Joe Biden, busy on the campaign trail, will make
.me to aaend the Summit of the Future. A big UN event with no U.S. president could look strange.

Even in the best circumstances, the Summit will only very par.ally fulfill the Secretary-General’s
concep.on of a moment to “forge a new global consensus on what our future should look like”.
In one of the beaer lines in Our Common Agenda, Guterres surveyed argued that humanity has
to choose between a “breakdown or breakthrough” in interna.onal coopera.on. As the Summit
of the Future approaches, the UN s.ll feels like an organiza.on that is close to breaking-point.