• Sunday, 22 September 2024

Reform plan to be adopted at UN's Summit of the Future in New York

Reform plan to be adopted at UN's Summit of the Future in New York

New York, 22 September 2024 (dpa/MIA) - Against the backdrop of a deeply divided world community, the member states of the United Nations are set to unanimously adopt a UN reform plan in New York on Sunday.

It was planned that the agreement would be adopted unanimously by all 193 states of the United Nations without a vote.

However, after months of negotiations, Russia is causing some unrest ahead of the two-day UN Summit of the Future, set to begin Sunday afternoon in New York.

UN member states are preparing for an attempt by Moscow to force a vote on the so-called Pact for the Future on Sunday, diplomats told dpa.

Russia, Belarus and Nicaragua had previously threatened to withhold their approval at the UN's Summit of the Future, according to diplomats.

It initially unclear whether this was just an empty threat from Russia. Diplomats had reportedly anticipated Russia would support the painstakingly negotiated compromise, despite its threats.

If Moscow insists on pushing for a vote, diplomats believe that this could be averted with the necessary majority of votes from the UN General Assembly.

The pact for the future was negotiated under the leadership of Germany and Namibia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will give a speech at the beginning of Sunday's event.

Scholz is in New York this weekend despite a high-profile regional election in Brandenburg on Sunday, with political observers both in Germany and abroad eager to see how his Social Democratic Party (SPD) fares in the voting as the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) might mirror recent electoral successes in Thuringia and Saxony.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres had called for ambitious reforms of the United Nations and other international organizations to make the international community more capable of acting in the face of many crises and wars and to make the world a fairer place.

This pact includes declarations of intent to reform the UN Security Council and calls for an adjustment of the international financial system in favour of the so-called Global South.

It also aims to lay the initial groundwork for the global regulation of artificial intelligence.

Despite some rays of hope, the final text falls short of Guterres' very ambitious expectations, diplomats have pointed out.