In a no-nonsense farewell speech, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged global leaders Tuesday to respond to the defining challenge today: Will the world continue on its path to fragmentation, or cooperate to tackle the existential threats from climate crisis, runaway artificial intelligence and intensifying inequalities? Read more'No peace without justice,' Macron tells UN General Assembly The UN leader has long implored leaders not to give up on cooperation and shared decision-making in the face of accelerating global challenges and increasing great-powers competition. Tuesday’s message at the UN General Assembly took on additional urgency because he leaves office at the end of this year.
Instead of letting the future continue to veer toward fragmentation, transactionalism and mistrust, he called for “a world built on interdependence – and sustained by a dense web of economic, political, social and technological connections”. His speech opened the main portion of the world's biggest diplomatic meeting of the year. Leaders from the UN's 193 member countries address each other and the international community and air their hopes, plans and grievances.
Guterres also rebuked might-makes-right thinking, telling superpowers to recognise “that their power isn’t so super”. Recent years have made it clear that “military power alone cannot secure peace,” he said. Yet about an hour after Guterres spoke, US President Donald Trump offered a different and equally frank view of power.
Read moreIran, AI and the ICC: Trump makes threats, touts policies at UN General Assembly “While others have promised strength, I have used it to make America the most powerful country in the world,” Trump said, touting his country's economic, technological and military footprint. He reiterated his view that the UN has “great potential” but rebuked it for what he called “imposing the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats”. He went on to criticise such bodies as the International Criminal Court, to which the US is not a party.
The annual high-level gathering at the UN General Assembly will be consumed with wars in Iran, Gaza,Ukraine,Sudan, DR Congo and Myanmar and a persisting question: Can the leaders do anything to end them? And what can they do about the relentless rise of global warming threatening the future of the planet, the growing inequalities within and among nations, and shocks to the global economy as blocked shipping routes and supply chains increase the cost of living? The future of the United Nations itself will also be on the agenda.
At 81, its powers are still the victorious nations from World War II, not the 21st century’s major global players. Member nations have agreed to a wide-ranging reform package that includes updating key institutions such as the powerful UN Security Council, where the US, Russia, China, Britain and France hold inordinate sway because of their veto power. Reform, however, is easier said than implemented.
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