(Editor’s note: Author Richard Ponzio also discusses the U.N. General Assembly’s Summit of the Future and high-level week in the Just Security Podcast. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.)
More than 130 heads of state and government met at United Nations Headquarters in New York last week amid an expanding war in the Middle East, continued devastating conflicts in Africa and Europe, and distrust among Member States of the “global south” over the “global north’s” failure to deliver on past commitments to fight climate change, hunger, and extreme poverty. So perhaps it is all the more remarkable that they mustered agreement on key documents that may re-establish a path toward enhanced global cooperation through the United Nations and beyond.
Meeting in the Sept. 22-23 Summit of the Future, and pressed by the energetic advocacy of more than 10,000 civil society representatives in the preceding “Action Days,” the global leaders produced a Pact for the Future, a Global Digital Compact, and a Declaration on Future Generations. The hard-fought agreements, though imperfect, should serve as stepping stones for even more ambitious, high-impact improvements down the road in an array of global governance institutions, including in the financial and economic realm, with the United Nations system at its core.
Albeit Down to the Wire, the Pact Landed Safely
A growing chorus of diplomats had called for “landing the Pact” back in mid-July, when the Namibian and German co-facilitators presented Revision 2. But it took two more months and four more revisions before the agreement and its two annexes (the aforementioned Compact and Declaration) would reach adoption. Some of the most contentious issues in the concluding weeks were in the areas of climate action, disarmament, international financial architecture reform, and human rights. Countries including Pakistan and Cuba (leading the self-declared “Like-Minded Group”), as well as Russia at times, viewed the Summit of the Future as a distraction at best and, moreover, infringing on their sovereignty and diverting financial resources and political attention from other priorities. They worked to thwart the negotiations and erode key actions and associated commitments, including on human rights and climate.
Most dramatic was the 11th hour introduction, on the first day of the summit, of a Russia-led amendment to the Pact declaring that “the United Nations and its system shall not intervene in matters which are essentially within the jurisdiction of any State …” That essentially questioned the Pact’s legitimacy to advance its widely consulted issue areas and reform ideas. In the end, a large majority of U.N. Member States resoundingly rejected the proposed amendment, with the exception of its six original co-sponsors plus Sudan (with several countries, including from the Like-Minded Group, abstaining).
The buy-in for the Pact demonstrated by the G77 group of developing countries in the final weeks of hard-fought negotiations is noteworthy, especially from across Africa, where support runs high for reform of both the Security Council and international financial structures. The G77’s 2024 chairman in New York, Ambassador Adonia Ayebare (U.N. Permanent Representative of Uganda), tweeted late on Sept. 20 that the resulting agreement “made gains” for the G77 and China “on the inclusion of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities [and] debt.”
Implementation and the Need to Mobilize Multiple Tracks for Reform
Significant thought and effort is now required to take forward the Summit of the Future’s 56 agreed actions and associated commitments. That’s similar to the follow-through that was required after the last comprehensive review of the multilateral system in time for the September 2005 World Summit. That led, for instance, to the creation of the U.N.’s peacebuilding architecture in December 2005, and upgrading of the Human Rights Commission into a more capable Council in March 2006, with new tools such as the Universal Periodic Review to examine each member country’s human rights record every 4 ½ years. This entails not only attaching concrete timelines and progress indicators — currently missing for most agreed actions, which can further help to “localize” the Pact — but also requires going far beyond the present, limited call in the Pact (para. 17) for a basic review of overall implementation in September 2028 “through a meeting at the level of Heads of State and Government.”
Nevertheless, Member States and others interested in ensuring the Pact is fully implemented will have a number of opportunities in the coming months and years. Such openings include follow-on resolutions at the Security Council and in the General Assembly, the already longstanding Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Revitalization of the General Assembly, intergovernmental negotiations on Security Council Reform, and reviews of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the related High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). Sector-specific implementation also could be taken up in venues such as the 2025 Peacebuilding Architecture Review, the 2025 Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, the 2025 World Social Summit, the World Summit on the Information Society +20 review in 2025, the High-level Review of the Global Digital Compact during the General Assembly’s 2027-2028 session, the review of the Declaration on Future Generations at a high-level plenary meeting during General Assembly’s 2028-2029 session, and other ongoing forums such as meetings of the World Bank, IMF, WTO, Climate COPs, and G20.
Through follow-on General Assembly resolutions and other vehicles for change, two promising examples of SOTF innovation are: first, the newly initiated Biennial Summit on the Global Economy (Pact Action 48), which Secretary-General António Guterres’ Our Common Agenda report and related research have shown is poised to drive the international financial architecture reforms (Actions 47-52) widely supported by developing countries. This includes bridging the gap in financing for the Sustainable Development Goals, on which the world is falling behind, and improving debt management. Both could be aided by increased financial firepower for multilateral development banks and using the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights creatively and more frequently.
Second, while the summit’s Global Digital Compact steers clear of far-reaching regulatory enterprises such as a new artificial intelligence governance body modeled on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Compact’s newly adopted Independent International Scientific Panel on AI (learning from the International Panel on Climate Change) and Global Dialogue on AI Governance can help some 118 countries finally engage in international deliberations on this powerful new technology.
Disappointments
At the same time, the final weeks of negotiations over the Pact for the Future produced some disappointments. One was the further watering down (in Pact Actions 9 and 10) of language on international environmental governance, despite a plethora of persuasive and urgently needed options. As a result, not only does the Pact fail to dedicate a chapter to governance of the environment, but where environmental references are “mainstreamed,” little is achieved in terms of operational or even conceptual breakthroughs.
The final version of the Pact also removed Action 32 in the third revision, which would have facilitated critical tech transfers to developing countries while safeguarding intellectual property rights. Another setback for proponents of a multilateral system capable of convening powerful States and non-State actors alike was cuttng the term “Emergency Platforms” (Action 54), while Member States still continued to back key elements of this signature proposal from Guterres to better respond to complex global shocks, including in areas ranging from food and energy insecurity to financial meltdowns and environmental disasters.
Toward a “Pact Plus”
Many of the 10,000 civil society representatives who attended the “SOTF Action Days” preceding the leaders summit participated in sessions showcasing several of the more than 20 multi-stakeholder ImPact Coalitions initiated at the earlier 2024 U.N. Civil Society Conference in support of the Summit of the Future held in May in Nairobi. Each of these coalitions is well-positioned to aid follow-through on essential elements of the Pact, the Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration on Future Generations. But the coalitions, with like-minded countries and business community partners, are also signaling the need to leverage summit outcomes to achieve even more ambitious and carefully researched new reforms in global governance.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leading-off world leaders’ remarks to the General Assembly one day after the summit, spoke to the missing elements in the agreement and the need for what I would call a “Pact Plus” of enhancements to the Pact, Compact, and Declaration. Referring to the U.N. Charter as it stands, Lula declared, “The Charter’s current version fails to address some of humanity’s most pressing challenges” and that “One-off adjustments are not enough.” He went on to outline what he would like to see going forward:
We need to think about reviewing and revising the Charter comprehensively. The reform should include the following goals: i) Transforming the Economic and Social Council into the main forum for dealing with sustainable development and the fight against climate change with a real capacity to inspire financial institutions; ii) Revitalizing the General Assembly, including in matters of international peace and security; iii) Strengthening the Peacebuilding Commission; and iv) Reforming the Security Council, focusing on its composition, working methods, and veto power in order to make it more effective and representative of contemporary realities. … I have no illusions about the complexity of a reform like this … It will require an enormous negotiation effort. But that is our responsibility.
Guterres’ High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism already in April 2023 recommended the body’s foundational Charter be revised through Article 109. Still, that was limited to Security Council reform only, which also is addressed in the Pact for the Future’s detailed Actions 39-41. A worthwhile exercise going forward would be to assess whether additional Charter amendments might help fulfill other actions and associated commitments outlined in the Pact.
Just as the U.N.’s founders advised in June 1945, global leaders must recognize the U.N. Charter’s imperfections and the need to improve it. We must also demystify the notion of amending the Charter (as its framers had always envisioned), and push back against Charter review detractors.
Germany will lead the presidency of the 80th General Assembly in 2025-2026, and a new U.N. Secretary-General will take office in January 2027. During this window for bold global leadership, preparations should commence to position the mandated September 2028 Pact for the Future progress review to introduce — or, at the very least, initiate intergovernmental negotiations toward — long-overdue structural changes through Charter revision. Such a pathway for change offers present and future generations a fighting chance of securing a more effective, networked, and inclusive system of global governance.