Antonio Guterres has been pushing the envelope since assuming the UN Secretary-General’s office. The Summit of the Future symbolizes the peak of his optimism toward fixing the global system through a common agenda coupled with an action plan. From September 20 to September 23, the deliberations at the UN headquarters attempted to address the polarization and contradictions confronting the global order.
“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink. Now it is our common destiny to walk through it. That demands not just agreement, but action,” said Guterres in his address to the UN General Assembly.
The UN General Assembly approved with an overwhelming majority a blueprint to tackle the challenges from climate change to conflicts and poverty. The Pact for the Future is a 42-page document that promises to change the lives of 8 billion people. Russia’s effort to water down the final declaration could win only support from Iran, Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan and Syria while 193 member-states ignored the intervention.
The Pact for the Future notes that the agreement comes “at a time of profound global transformation,” in the face of “rising catastrophic and existential risks” that can catapult living beings “into a future of persistent crisis and breakdown.”
The pact includes 56 actions on issues including eradicating poverty, mitigating climate change, achieving gender equality, promoting peace and protecting civilians and reinvigorating the multilateral system to “seize the opportunities of today and tomorrow.”
The pact commits world leaders to reform the 15-member Security Council, to make it more reflective of today’s world and “redress the historical injustice against Africa,” which has no permanent seat, and to address the under-representation of the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America.
The Global Digital Compact, the first annexure of the Pact of the Future, is the first universal agreement of its kind on global regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). It pledges to set up an Independent International Scientific Panel in the UN to promote scientific understanding of AI, and its risks and opportunities. It also commits the UN to initiate a global dialogue on AI governance with all key players.
Amongst the least likely goals set forth is reforming the 15-member Security Council, in a bid make it more representative.
The second annexure to the Pact is the Declaration on Future Generations, which includes commitments to urgently act to address critical environmental challenges, strengthen cooperation in response to demographic trends and invest in quality education for all, including digital literacy to bridge the digital divides.
Guterres’ Good Intentions Versus Realpolitik
Without attempting to discredit the success in achieving overwhelming support for the pact from 193 member states, the challenges of urgency, financing, and implementation cannot be understated. Multilateral cooperation in a parlous geopolitical context demands forceful diplomatic capital and various coalitions.
Though Russia and its handful of allies stand aside, the divide between North and South remains as stark as ever since the formation of the UN. Africa’s forceful participation in the Summit of the Future highlights that the continent’s inhabitants will not stand by passively any longer.
The North adds a little premium to one state, one vote for a body like the General Assembly. It feels more at home in the UN Security Council, IMF, OECD and the World Bank, where it enjoys weighted voting. Can the Pact of the Future fix this inherent disparity in the global system? The answer is anything but optimistic.
The near-consensus on tackling challenges of preventing atrocities, alleviating extreme poverty, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and bridging the technological gap espouses optimism for a better future. No doubt, the summit’s deliberations remained eclipsed by headlines from Palestine, Ukraine, and floods across the planet. However, the gathering brings the UN back to the forefront of the discourse on matters more long-term and cataclysmic. Can multilateral diplomacy change the course of global trends? Well, the summit offers another forum to deliberate on the long-term reform process. Overnight success was not expected from the UNGA gathering on September 25 but will invariably be incremental.
The worthy and noble effort of holding the summit on issues that are not on the agenda of high politics through a forum that gives equal voice to everyone is hemorrhaged by the vested interests of military-industrial complexes, the oil lobby and neo-imperialist blocs. The quest for a more egalitarian multilateral system that amplifies the South’s voice, power and interests must continue but without hyperbole of change unless it yields concrete outcomes.
