The United Nations often seems inadequate in an era of international mistrust: the Security Council has failed to respond meaningfully to the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan; scientists warn that there is little to no chance of states meeting the UN’s goals to limit global warming, agreed in 2015; and multilateral efforts to end extreme poverty are faltering.
On September 22 and 23, leaders will gather in New York for an event that is meant to stop the rot. The Summit of the Future, announced by António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, in 2021, is intended to face up to these challenges. Yet there is a risk that it will only highlight the limits to international cooperation.
Guterres is blunt that existing UN institutions cannot manage 21st-century challenges. He has admitted international cooperation failed during the Covid pandemic, despite its global reach, as governments prioritized the protection of their citizens. He is also concerned that there are no real multilateral frameworks for managing new technologies such as AI.
The secretary-general also believes many existing multilateral institutions are stuck in the past. The United States and Europeans continue to have excessive power in the Security Council and international financial institutions. Many non-western countries see the UN as weighted against their interests.
Multilateralism that works
The Summit of the Future is supposed to a be a moment when presidents and prime ministers address these problems head on. But as one senior diplomat involved in pre-summit negotiations noted, it has been hard to focus on innovation at the UN against the backdrop of rows over Gaza and Ukraine.
Instead, the diplomat observed, the priority has been to preserve the existing UN system – and to try to build up confidence among members that they can still work together. For all its faults, the UN does still sometimes strengthen international cooperation: last year, diplomats finalized a treaty on protecting biodiversity in the high seas. A successful conclusion to the Summit of the Future would be a further opportunity to show multilateralism can still work.
The summit’s centrepiece is a Pact for the Future, touching on virtually all aspects of multilateral cooperation. This is supposed to be agreed by consensus among the UN’s 193 member states, a very tall order. Negotiating the pact , which Germany and Namibia have co-facilitated, has been tense with different blocs of states setting out competing priorities.
Push from the Global South
Developing countries have insisted the focus should be on international economic cooperation. Scores of UN members are now suffering from unsustainable debt, and a quarter of the UN’s members spend more on servicing the interest on their debt than they do on health and education. These struggling states naturally want the World Bank and IMF to give them improved financing.
The US and European countries have acknowledged the problem. This is in part because they recognize the dangers associated with international debt, but also reflects their desire to win over members of the Global South in the struggle for influence with China and Russia.
Nonetheless, 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 IMF – 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.
Turning to peace and security issues, many UN members have argued that Security Council reform is essential in light of the body’s recent failures. India in particular has pushed hard to secure a permanent seat. But diplomats have not been able to find a formula to overhaul the UN’s main security institution, sapping the body’s credibility further as crises pile up on its agenda.
Another headache is nuclear disarmament. Many UN members have called on the nuclear powers to use the summit to recommit to shrinking their arsenals. Russia has vehemently dismissed the idea that the UN should take a lead on arms control, and the Pact of the Future will at best include some lowest common denominator references to disarmament and nuclear risk reduction.
Splits have also emerged over one of the secretary-general’s original priorities: multilateral cooperation around new technologies. The summit is meant to agree a Global Digital Compact covering cooperation on the internet and AI. The idea that the UN could help regulate these technologies is attractive to developing countries. But for those with advanced AI capabilities – most notably the US – it is less welcome. The Digital Compact will contain encouraging promises to harness technology for humanity, but few binding rules.
Another priority for Guterres will be a Declaration on Future Generations, a brief set of pledges by UN members to consider the long-term future of humanity when making policy decisions on issues like the use of natural resources. Negotiators frequently say that this will be ‘aspirational’, a euphemism for ‘vague’.
A case for the long view
This may sound like thin gruel when the UN is so clearly faltering. Yet it is also worth taking the long view. The various declarations may not reshape international cooperation, but they can create hooks for more substantive diplomacy over looming problems – be it AI or stewarding dwindling global resources as they grow more pressing.
There are precedents for UN commitments setting agendas that last decades. Current development spending targets, for example, are rooted in UN resolutions dating back to 1970. In the future, Guterres may get credit for sketching out areas for international cooperation that will evolve after he leaves office in 2026. Some UN insiders are already looking to 2030 as a possible date for a more serious set of reform discussions.
That is the year that the UN is meant to complete the implementation of its Sustainable Development Goals, an ambitious programme to slash poverty and safeguard the planet originally agreed in 2015.