The Pact for the Future of the Planet: Making Multilateralism Work
The Summit adopted an ambitious outcome document – Pact of the Future– along with its two annexes on Global Digital Compact and Declaration on Future Generations. It was presented by the President of the 79th UN General Assembly (UNGA) and formally adopted as resolution 79/1 on September 22, 2024.
Introduction
The Summit of the Future ended with great expectations on September 23, 2024 after two days of routine speeches by the Heads of State or Government as well as intensive and interactive four dialogues. The Summit adopted an ambitious outcome document – Pact of the Future– along with its two annexes on Global Digital Compact and Declaration on Future Generations. It was presented by the President of the 79th UN General Assembly (UNGA) and formally adopted as resolution 79/1 on September 22, 2024.
Philémon Yang, President of the 79th UNGA (elected on June 06, 2024) observed that “As we close the Summit of the Future, I urge all Member States to continue to push for decisive action and to create meaningful progress.” The feisty UN Secretary-General (SG), Antonio Guterres justified convening of the 2024 Summit since “21st century challenges require 21st century solutions”. “We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink. I called for this Summit to consider deep reforms to make global institutions more legitimate, fair and effective, based on the values of the UN Charter…we need tough decisions to get back on track”, Guterres, in opening remarks (September 22, 2024), cautioned the assembled world leaders.
All Roads Led to UNHQ in New York
On September 22-23, 2024 all roads led to the UN headquarters in New York for the Summit of the Future. Described as once-in-a-generation UN Summit, leaders of 193-member organization assembled for confabulations in 2024 that came to be known as “Year of the Planetary Future” (Author: here, here). As contended by the UNSG Guterres, the world requires “future of solutions, not endless conflict”. Leaders from the Global South such as Cyril Ramphosa, President of South Africa, called for addressing the “root causes of war”. Similarly, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the global conflicts in these words: “Success of humanity lies in our collective strength, not in the battlefield…reforms in global institutions are essential.” Modi alluded to India’s aspirations to become a permanent member of the UNSC (Author, SIS Blog, March 22, 2024). Others seminal ideas for UN reforms include “repurpose” of the UN Trusteeship Council [Author, EPL, 52 (2022) 223-235]. In the same vein, the US President Joe Biden, in his final address (September 24, 2024) to the UNGA asked some tough questions troubling the world: “Will we stand behind the principles that unite us? Will we stand firm against aggression? Will we end the conflicts that are raging today?” Then, in a matter of fact way, Biden urged the Assembly that “The choices we make today will determine our future for decades to come.”
The Moment of Truth
The warnings for planetary crisis and quest to find solutions underscores proverbial dilemma of the humankind for living in harmony with nature. (GA resolution 75/220 of December 21, 2020). It reminds us about the alarm bells rung in the sixties and seventies through scholarly works such as Silent Spring (1962), The Limits to Growth (1972), This Endangered Planet (1972) and Only One Earth (1972). They set the stage for the first UN Conference on Human Environment (Stockholm, 1972). This author’s early publication (“Destroying the Global Environment,” International Perspectives, Ottawa, Nov./Dec. 1986, 27-28), as a doctoral scholar, prophesized that “human quest for development seriously threatens our fragile ecosystem.” In this backdrop, two curated scholarly works of this author in 2022 (Envisioning Our Environmental Future) and 2021 (Our Earth Matters) reflected the spirit of those early works and reminded the decision-makers about rapidly “depleting time” (Nicholas A. Robinson, EPL 51 (2021) 361-369] for course correction.
The timing of the UN Summit can be considered as humankind’s “moment of truth” (Author, SIS Blog, June 30, 2024) wherein global challenges are moving faster than the ability to resolve them. It is taking place in the aftermath of the two mega conferences of 2022 on the Stockholm+50 and UNEP@50. In his June 02, 2022 address at Stockholm+50, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had warned that our consumption is “at the rate of 1.7 planets a year” and the “global well-being is in jeopardy”. The gathering storms indicate a planetary-level human-induced crisis at work. Since coming events cast their shadows before, humankind seems to have sleepwalked into an existential “triple planetary crisis” (Author, Green Diplomacy, November 08, 2023).
The advent of the UN has stood the test of time for 79 long years unlike the League of Nations that existed for 20 years. Notwithstanding its limits, as a member-driven international organization in a State-centric global order, the UN matters most for humanity’s survival on planet Earth. The UNGA has been the main anchor for concerted international environmental law-making [Author, EPL 50 (6) 2020, 489-508] and institution-building processes [Author (2014), International Environmental Governance, Boston: Brill Nijhoff, Chapters 2-4) comprising the normative approach at work. Pursuing the global conferencing technique, the UNGA took crucial decisions across a wide canvass that include convening of some major global conferences (1972, 1992, 2002, 2012 and 2022). The AR6 Synthesis Report (Interlaken; March 13-19, 2023) of the IPCC, set up by the UNGA in 1988, has unequivocally confirmed widespread and rapid “human-caused climate change” occurred in the “atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere…in every region across the globe”.
2024: New York Summit
The UN Summit of the Future had four intensive interactive dialogues chaired by heads of government of different countries. The Summit’s outcome document (September 23, 2024) – Pact for the Future – (56 actions points arranged in 84 paragraphs) agreed upon through intergovernmental negotiations. It comprises two annexes containing two other instruments: Global Digital Compact and Declaration on Future Generations. The Pact pledges for a new beginning in multilateralism. It aims to ensure that the UN and other key multilateral institutions can deliver a better future for people and planet as well as could enable states to fulfil existing commitments amidst new and emerging challenges and opportunities. The Pact reiterates that “every commitment in this Pact is fully consistent and aligned with international law, including human rights law”. While the Plenary Meeting took place in the General Assembly Hall, the four interactive dialogues were held in the Trusteeship Council Chamber. There is a scholarly idea from the Global South (originally mooted by this author on January 15, 1999 at Legal Department of the World Bank, Washington DC) to ‘repurpose’ the UN Trusteeship Council [Author, EPL, 52 (2022) 223-235] with a new mandate for global environment and global commons.
The Pact for the Future
The finally adopted the Pact for the Future (as the UNGA resolution 79/1 of September 22, 2024) contains five pillars of sustainable development and financing for development, international peace and security, science, technology and innovation and digital cooperation, youth and future generations and transforming global governance. The two year-long preparatory process for the Summit brought about the realization that international order stands still. The Pact lays down a roadmap for reform of the UNSC to make it “more representative, inclusive, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable” as well as intensifying efforts “to reach an agreement on the future of the veto, including discussions on limiting its scope and use”.
Indicative of the things to come, the Pact underscores the centrality of the UNGA as the “chief deliberative, policymaking and representative organ” to address current and future global challenges. In view of the consistent stalemates in the UNSC and its ineffectiveness in resolving most of the global conflicts, the pendulum has shifted to some extent to the UN’s plenary organ (UNGA) to play role on issues of international peace and security. In this respect, the Assembly draws manmade from Article 11 of UN Charter (subject to limit placed in Article 12) as it empowers to “discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security” as well as “call the attention of the Security Council to situations which are likely to endanger international peace and security”.
From the perspective of Law of International Organization, the UN Charter contains beautiful balancing between the two principal UN organs (UNGA and UNSC). Notwithstanding the inherent inequality in the UNSC due to ‘veto’ possessed by the P5 countries, the Assembly was expected to fill up the void in cases wherein the UNSC gets deadlocked due to exercise of veto. Since the UN’s inception, vetoes have been used 321 times (1945-2024). As an indication of a shift, the UNGA convened the 11th Emergency Special Session that took some vital decisions on conflicts raging in Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza. For instance, in the aftermath of the Russian veto to defend its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, the UNGA adopted an resolution 76/262 on April 26, 2022 that has given a standing mandate for a UNGA debate whenever a veto is cast in the UNSC. It provides that “President of the General Assembly shall convene a formal meeting of the General Assembly within 10 working days of the casting of a veto by one or more permanent members of the Security Council, to hold a debate on the situation as to which the veto was cast.” This extraordinary step shows the future pathway to ‘blunt the edges’ in the use of veto by P5. Possibly, it could render veto less attractive in the future expansion of the UNSC. In turn, it opens the doors for the third category: UNSC permanent membership without veto. It would be appealing in IGN negotiations for (G4) countries such as Brazil, Germany, India and Japan.
Significantly, the Pact contains consensual understanding on the need “for the selection and appointment process of the Secretary-General to be guided by the principles of merit, transparency and inclusiveness”. Alluding to the selection and appointment processes for the next UNSG, the Pact underscores the “regrettable fact that there has never been a woman Secretary-General, and we encourage Member States to consider nominating women as candidates”. It indicates winds of change and things to come when successor to Antonio Guterres will be deliberated upon by the UNGA and the UNSC.
Two Annexes to the Pact
The Pact for the Future (UNGA resolution 79/1 of September 22, 2024) contains two annexes on (i) Global Digital Compact (Annex I; pages 37-52) and (ii) Declaration on Future Generations (Annex II; pages 52-56). The 74 paragraphs of Digital Compact seek to address the “power of emerging technologies is creating new possibilities but also new risks for humanity, some of which are not yet fully known”. Significantly, the Compact swears to build foundations for the multilateral digital cooperation on the basis of “international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, international human rights law and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. It draws upon previous processes in the field such as report of the World Summit on the Information Society (UNGA Doc. A/60/687 of March 15, 2006) and the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action (UNGA Doc. A/C.2/59/3 of October 27, 2004). The Digital Compact comprises five objectives (Article 7). Since the Compact emphatically declares that it is “anchored in international law, including international human rights law”, the 13 principles (Article 8) contained therein would provide a basis for the future global treaty for regulation of the digital technology.
The Declaration on Future Generations is encapsulated in just 4.5 pages and is divided into Guiding Principles (10), Commitments (13) and Actions (9). Building upon the one of the cardinal precepts of International Law – fiduciary obligation – the Declaration reiterates obligation of the present generation to “to leave a better future for generations to come” as well as “safeguards the needs and interests of future generations”. This derives its inspiration from the idea of ‘trusteeship” that came to be inserted in the 1945 UN Charter (Chapter XII and XIII) in the form of “Trust Territories” and the instrumentality of the UN Trusteeship Council (UNTC; Articles 86-91). Now there is concerted movement in the UN corridors and intergovernmental forums to “repurpose” the UNTC (here, here, here) “to serve as a deliberative forum” and provide adequate “foundation for the prosperity of future generations” (paragraph 4). However, except pious homilies, the Declaration does not provide any concrete normative resolve or institutional wherewithal. It merely notes the proposal of the UNSG to appoint a Special Envoy for Future Generations to support the implementation of the Declaration. Thus, it is still work-in-progress.
Conclusion
There were high expectations that the Summit cannot fail. The outcome document – Pact of the Future showed multilateralism in action. However, the main challenge would lie in walking-the-talk. The UNSG asserted (September 18, 2024) that “we can’t create a future fit for our grandchildren with systems built for our grandparents.” Similarly, the Indian Prime Minister’s assertion (September 23, 2024) that “success of humanity lies in our collective strength, not in the battlefield” aligns with previous address (September 25, 2021 76th UNGA) that “We cannot fight today’s challenges with outdated structures” (Author, The Tribune, December 02, 2020). There are 59 global conflicts (Uppsala Conflict Data, June 03, 2024) jeopardizing future of two billion people. They derail UN driven multilateralism. To make the system work for a new world order, the UN members would need to revisit all relevant Charter processes and structures including the ‘blueprint’ for the prohibition of “threat or use for force” [Article 2(4) and Article 51]. Moreover, to operationalize the Pact of the Future would require concerted follow-up action by all.
The above scenario presents a challenge for the global scholarly community to ideate on the Planetary Future (Author, SIS Blog, June 30, 2024). Its within remit of the conscientious scholars, with all human limits as well as irrespective of location, resources and hindrances (all kinds of mindsets, processes and systems), to think aloud and ahead for a better common future for our planet Earth. From his small perch in JNU (New Delhi), 12, 000 km away from the decision-making center of the world in UN (New York), this author has audaciously sought to make a modest contribution to the global knowledge pool by bringing together cutting-edge ideas of some of the global thought leaders. It has led to curating and publication of Part – I of the EPL Special Issue 54 (2-3), 2024] comprising contributions of ten eminent scholars prior to the 2024 Summit of the Future. Rest of the contributions will be published in Part – II of the EPL Special Issue 54 (4-5) in November 2024.
