THIS YEAR’S General Assembly debate kicks off tomorrow at the United Nations with speeches by President George Bush and Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, setting the scene for an intense week of politics at the world body. An annual ritual, it catches the current international themes and political mood in a necessary embrace and gives an opportunity to amplify them around the globe.
This year Iraq, Iran, the Russian-Georgian conflict, climate change, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Darfur and the Millennium Development Goals are expected to figure prominently. And international financial turbulence will also cast a shadow on the gathering. President Bush will deliver his final speech to the assembly, having had an ambiguous relationship with the UN since 2001, and is expected to concentrate on Iraq and Iran. Some member-states believe the US still unacceptably dominates the UN while others want to see it more involved now that Mr Bush’s unilateral moment has passed.
Behind the scenes there will be intense bargaining over enlarging permanent membership of the Security Council, now that the issue has been released from a special committee to the General Assembly as a whole. This is a central question concerning the UN’s international legitimacy and should be brought to a speedy conclusion if at all possible. Brazil, Germany, Japan and India are the front runners, but states such as Indonesia are also pitching for a seat. And at some stage the European Union must respond to queries from elsewhere and within its ranks about whether three EU places on the Security Council are justified.
The new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called a high-level meeting of leaders of governments, companies, foundations and rights groups on Thursday to discuss the UN’s Millennium Development Goals aimed at cutting poverty in half by 2015. This will be attended by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, in an important endorsement of Ireland’s commitment. Despite numerous pledges other states are falling behind in their contributions.
The UN remains a central institution in a rapidly changing world, despite its many abiding and emerging shortcomings. Mr Ban Ki-moon has yet to establish a commanding authority and needs to do so in the coming year.