UNITED NATIONS, Sept 19 (IPS) – The United Nations has spent the past year tirelessly promoting the upcoming Summit of the Future – scheduled for September 22-23 – as a landmark event.
And rightly so.
But surprisingly, the provisional list of speakers, released earlier this week, includes a notable absentee from a high-level summit: the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council. These members do not include heads of state (HS) or heads of government (HG).
The US, UK, France and Russia are represented by ‘ministers’ (the US is likely represented by the Secretary of State or the Ambassador to the UN), while China is represented by a Deputy Prime Minister (DPM), who still reports to a HS or a HG.
Does the absence of high-ranking P5 political leaders diminish the importance of this much-hyped summit, which aims to create a “better future for humanity”?
The only HS and HGs come largely from the Global South, including India, Brazil, Bangladesh, Chile, Iran, Peru, Pakistan, South Africa, Qatar and Costa Rica, plus the Scandinavian countries.
At a press conference on September 18, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that one of the issues discussed at the summit was a long-standing proposal for Security Council reform.
“One of the very important aspects of the Summit of The Future is the recognition that our institutions need to be reformed. And one of the institutions that needs that reform is the Security Council,” he stressed.
He said that one of the questions that is important regarding the future is precisely about the role of the P5 and the need for some redistribution of power to make things fairer and more effective.
The Summit of the Future will address the need for effective governance of artificial intelligence; accelerating the fight against climate chaos; reforming the Security Council within the international financial architecture; and all issues related to debt and the lack of financial resources that undermine the development of developing countries around the world.
The Summit of the Future will also address disarmament issues and, in particular, the problems surrounding the weaponisation of new types of technological devices, including the use of autonomous weapons.
“I believe that if there is anything that addresses the real challenges that we face or that we are trying to address, it is the Summit of the Future,” Guterres said.
So why are the P5 leaders skipping the summit? Is it for personal or political reasons?
Mandeep Tiwana, head of evidence and engagement at CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists, told IPS that it does not matter whether the P-5 leaders attend the summit or not.
Their bickering and unwillingness to take action against atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan and Ukraine show that they are not credible players in securing a better future for humanity, he said.
“As the P-5 states pursue their narrowly defined national interests, meaningful progress toward peace, sustainable development, and human rights for future generations will likely come from smaller, less powerful states that still believe in the power of international solidarity and cooperation. The world’s problems are too complex for the P-5 or governments to manage alone.”
So far, he said, the Pact for the Future – a key outcome document – offers little innovation to improve citizen and civil society participation in the UN.
“If the current situation continues, it would be a missed opportunity for the international community to advance the aspirations of a people’s United Nations fit to address current and future challenges. Already, intersecting global crises, political rivalries among countries and limitations of strongly state-centric approaches are creating diplomatic deadlocks and hampering the effectiveness of the UN,” he said.
Brenda Mofya, Oxfam International’s representative to the UN, told IPS: “We want all countries to take this summit – and the opportunity for transformative reform it brings – seriously.”
“The P5 has outsized power in the Security Council and across the multilateral system, and their level of representation at such an event sends a message. This summit is not the end – it is the beginning. As we see inequality, conflict and the climate crisis only increasing, leaders must redouble their efforts and restore people’s trust in the UN as the home of peace, security and cooperation,” Mofya said.
Andreas Bummel, co-founder and director of Democracy Without Borders, told IPS that the Summit of the Future was promoted as a unique opportunity to renew the UN and multilateralism.
In some areas, the outcome document represents progress, but overall the summit is not a breakthrough moment. That comes as no surprise. The political landscape at the UN is contentious and consensus on far-reaching ideas is impossible to achieve, he argued.
Authoritarian governments in particular are not interested in strengthening the UN or transforming global governance, he stressed.
“The absence of many heads of state from the Summit is nevertheless unfortunate. It certainly further limits the significance of the event,” he said.
Purnima Mane, former President and CEO of Pathfinder International and former Deputy Executive Director (Programme) and UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS that in theory, the Summit of the Future is a major UN milestone event as promoted by the UN.
“But that can only happen if all governments, including the P-5, are represented at the highest or very highest level, i.e. head of state or head of government.”
The preliminary list of speakers suggests that this is unlikely to be the case for the P-5 countries. Tellingly, representation at the highest levels comes largely from the South, from countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The themes of the Summit focus on areas of critical importance for the future of the world, such as sustainable development, international peace and security, science, technology and innovation and digital cooperation, youth and future generations, and the transformation of global governance. The Summit therefore offers an opportunity to strengthen global engagement on these important issues. These issues are crucial for global development today and especially tomorrow.
While the absence of the top leaders of the P5 countries from the summit is discouraging, she said, it can also be seen as an important opportunity for other countries to share their views and express their willingness and ability to engage on the issues under discussion, thereby taking a greater leadership role on these issues.
This could result in a transformation of the leadership of the future in the truest sense of the word – a potential outcome that could be seen as much needed, Mané stated.
Meanwhile, when the summit portion of the UN General Assembly took place last September, several key world leaders were also absent, including, most importantly, the leaders of four of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the most powerful political body within the United Nations.
Only US President Joe Biden attended, while Emmanuel Macron of France, Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Rishi Sunak of the UK skipped the UN sessions.
As an article in Le Monde noted, “Such conspicuous absences reflect the crisis in which UN bodies find themselves, against the backdrop of an international scene that is crumbling.”
Former diplomat Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to the United Nations, said: “Multilateralism is under serious pressure in an increasingly multipolar world.”
“The absence of leaders in the Security Council is a symptom, but not the only one, of a powerless UN, caused by the war in Ukraine and the rivalry between the United States and China.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
