UN in the grip of a major crisis: Absence of leaders of 4 permanent member countries

Photo credit: UN symbol at the entrance to the Geneva building, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

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Article written by Pierre Duval

This Tuesday, September 19, the UN General Assembly begins in New York. The subject of the conflict in Ukraine still remains central, but the attention of the participating countries is increasingly turning to solving the problems of the countries of the South. The absence of French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from the event intrigued the media. The UN began to predict its imminent collapse. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, is scheduled to give a speech there, however. 

The UN is brain dead

The UN rostrum is the traditional “stage” for representatives of all heads of state and government. Country leaders usually seek to take advantage of the opportunity to speak in person at a meeting to express their position on a particular issue. But not this year. “The UN is doing badly, very badly, plunged into a crisis which is both the symptom and the consequence of a growing fragmentation of the world which it cannot stem”, points out Challenges which announces that “Emmanuel Macron will not not the trip to the UN General Assembly.” “To get the UN out of brain death, it is urgent to reform it,” says the French weekly magazine. (ER: BRICS+, anyone?)

Absence of France at the UN with Volodymyr Zelensky

French President Emmanuel Macron will miss the event due to a “busy diplomatic schedule,” Politico reports. According to several French officials, the head of the Fifth Republic is preparing to welcome King Charles III (the British monarch’s visit had been postponed due to riots in the country). Furthermore, the leader of the British Labor Party, Keir Starmer, also plans to meet Macron this Tuesday in Paris. And, next weekend, the French president will meet Pope Francis in Marseille.

Politico calls Rishi Sunak’s absence “even more surprising” than that of Emmanuel Macron because it would have been his first UN General Assembly as British Prime Minister. Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party recently suffered a defeat in the polls. It would probably make perfect sense to shift the focus from foreign policy to domestic policy. This is what he did, but to the detriment of the New York meeting.

“In addition to the absences of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also not attend the rally in New York next week,” notes Politico. The only leader of a country (with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council) who will be present in New York is US President Joe Biden. His speech at the opening of the debates at the UN on September 19 should attract much more attention in the Western press than in previous years.

But, now, questions are being asked about the absence of Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron, especially since the latter have shown solid support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since the start of the conflict last February.

The topics that countries intend to address are also no secret. Ukraine still remains central. At the UN platform, Volodymyr Zelensky hopes to once again obtain support for his “10-point peace plan”. But, things didn’t turn out to be that simple.

The Guardian describes the presence of the Ukrainian president at the UN summit as “the biggest geopolitical drama of the week,” especially since he will personally address the General Assembly for the first time.

Richard Gowen, director of the Organization’s International Crisis Group think tank, called Zelensky’s decision a gamble at a time when there is growing pressure, including from G77 states, to agree a ceasefire. “We should not underestimate the element of risk,” said Richard Gowen. “ If [Volodymyr] Zelensky goes to the General Assembly and the Security Council and insists that Ukraine must continue to fight and that this is not the time for diplomacy, I think that “He will face a lot of backlash ,” he continued.

The second topic (and almost the main one) remains the discussion on the problems of the countries of the South. For Reuters, several summits organized during the General Assembly focus on the priorities of developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In particular, the themes of climate, health, financing and means of achieving the sustainable development goals will fall under the “diplomatic focus ”.

The Guardian insists that “the absence of world leaders comes at a time when the organization has proven powerless to end major conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan, and when the international community is falling well short of the goals set by the UN to fight poverty, disease, famine and catastrophic climate change”. For Richard Gowen, “the situation at the UN is currently gloomy and I think it is significantly darker than during the high-level week of 2022”. “A year later, we feel like we are much closer to the edge of the cliff,” he concluded.

European diplomats, speaking to foreign journalists on condition of anonymity, were unanimous that geopolitical tensions could push more developing countries away from Western-led efforts and closer to the BRICS group. This gives them hope for “better realization of some of the interests of the developing world .”

“The absence of the French president sends a negative signal to the world given France’s stated support for multilateralism and the president’s enthusiasm for diplomacy .” “This summer, [Emmanuel] Macron tried to get an invitation to the BRICS summit in South Africa and in recent years, France has invested more and more in Asian forums like APEC or ASEAN, ” reminds  Politico.

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Source

Featured image, Macron: Gonzalo Fuentes/Pool via AP

Featured image, Sunak: PA Wire

Featured image, Khan: Richard Heathcote, Getty

Featured image, Putin, Xi, Modi: PTI