Originally published by the International Federation of Resistance Fighters – https://fir.at/en/
There is no doubt that the United Nations must be strengthened as an international institution. For this reason, the UN General Assembly held a “Summit of the Future” this year on September 22/23 under the motto “Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow”. Germany and Namibia were to play a moderating role in this process. Because of this debate, a “Pact for the Future” was to be adopted, which would identify the key tasks of the United Nations in the coming years and make practicable proposals for the further development of its structures.
The member states had already agreed in 2023 that this meeting should focus on the topics of sustainable development and development financing, peace and security, science and technology, youth and future generations and the transformation of global governance. The “Pact for the Future” should be negotiated and adopted by the member states by consensus. This means that this document should actually be a serious compromise between all member states. This presupposed a willingness for dialog and consensus, which was difficult to expect in the current global political situation.
Over the past few months, several rounds of debate have taken place in which numerous proposals for a final document were put forward. This resulted in a paper of just under 30 pages with five chapters containing proposals for action on various topics such as hunger and poverty, peacekeeping, reform of the international financial architecture, reform of the UN Security Council, rules for artificial intelligence and a renewed commitment to the previous climate protection agreements. However, even with regard to the practical implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is reaffirmed in this document, the result is sobering. The countries are currently less than a fifth of the way to achieving the goals for 2030 formulated in the Agenda. As things stand, the goals they have set themselves will be missed dramatically. Poverty and hunger are on the rise because the rich countries of the global North are not meeting their financial commitments.
Global governance is a controversial topic. The states of the West must increasingly accept that the global South is no longer prepared to condemn violations of the UN Charter only if they are committed by non-Western states, while their own violations (such as those of the “coalition of the willing” in the Iraq war) remain without consequences.
An important point from the point of view of the Western states is the reform of the UN Security Council. The proposal is to increase the number of permanent members of the Council so that all regions of the world are permanently represented in future. At present, neither India, the African continent nor Latin America are represented in this body. This is precisely what the USA, Australia, India and Japan called for at their most recent meeting in the so-called QUAD Group. Critics therefore rightly suspect that this proposal is more an attempt to strengthen the political position vis-à-vis China and less to strengthen the United Nations.
The German delegation’s conduct of negotiations during the drafting of the final document was problematic when it was no longer prepared to address objections from member states, in this case Russia, in the run-up to the “Future Summit”. Instead, Congo was asked to submit a motion to the General Assembly not to refer the Russian proposal to a vote, so that no further debate was possible. As a result, an overwhelming majority of member states adopted the “Pact for the Future”, but Russia and other states refused to approve it. It is more than questionable whether this was helpful for its implementation.
A forward-looking orientation for the UN is from the view of FIR more urgent than ever. In contrast to a “unipolar world order” dominated by the USA, the United Nations must once again succeed in finding a path to international understanding and consensus. In this way, the UN could strengthen the acceptance of multilateralism, which – especially in view of the global renaissance of nationalism – is indispensable for the future tasks of the world community. FIR, awarded the title of “Ambassador for Peace” by the United Nations, is accompanying this process as a civil society force with great attention.