- António Guterres, secretary general of the organization, stressed that the document would lay the foundations for a “sustainable world order”
On September 22, world leaders adopted the Pact for the Future at the United Nations (UN), a non-binding document that opens the door to a reform of the Security Council, a redesign of the institution’s financial architecture and new regulations for technological advances.
The Future Pact, which was to be approved by consensus and after 18 months of negotiations between member states, “will lay the foundations for a sustainable, just and peaceful world order for all peoples and nations,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his opening speech.
The intervention by the Portuguese politician, who stressed the need to “rescue multilateralism from the abyss” in a world where conflicts have proliferated, came immediately after the Russian delegation sprang a surprise at the last minute and attempted to amend the text.
Attempted amendment was not included
The Russian delegation stated in its opening remarks at the first official session of the Future Summit that there was supposedly no meeting in which all delegations sat down to study the document paragraph by paragraph.
“Amendments were only tabled to benefit Western countries. This cannot be called multilateralism. It is a huge failure for the UN principle of sovereign equality of states,” he stressed.
They added: “It does not take into account that it is the West that is failing to meet its obligations in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals and this lack of commitment is always blamed on the global south.”
This attempted amendment, which was verbally supported in the extremes by other delegations such as that of Venezuela (also representing Iran and Syria), led to the African Group (led by Congo) presenting a motion to disregard the last-minute Russian manoeuvre.
The motion to exclude the Russian amendment was supported by 143 countries, with 15 abstentions and 7 votes against (Russia itself, Sudan, North Korea, Nicaragua, Iran, Syria and Belarus).
Main objectives of the pact
The Future Pact, which was finally adopted and is accompanied by a Global Digital Pact and a Declaration for Future Generations, primarily seeks to ensure that international institutions can fulfil their functions in a world that has changed dramatically since the end of the Second World War.
“We cannot create a future fit for our grandchildren with a system built by our grandparents,” Guterres said at the session.
The Pact for the Future, which also aims to pave the way for reform of the Security Council in an attempt to make it a “more representative and inclusive” body, includes shared guidelines on issues such as climate change, security, human rights and global governance.
Most world leaders and representatives of foreign ministries from around the world expressed their satisfaction with the text.
The positions of some leaders
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he hopes the pact will serve as a “boost” to ensure that “the Sustainable Development Goals do not become the biggest collective failure in the history” of the United Nations.
“The Pact for the Future should serve as a compass for a future that requires more cooperation than confrontation (…) Division will not be the end of the United Nations because we remain committed to treating each other with respect and in a fair manner,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country served as one of the co-facilitators of this pact together with Namibia.
Others, such as the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, welcomed the adoption of the document and highlighted what he considers a new contribution to the “defense of the rule of law.”
“Let us uphold the rule of law and ensure that the principles of the UN Charter remain the fundamental guide for our activities. Attempts to change the status quo by force are intolerable anywhere in the world,” Kishida said.
The United Nations has explained that thousands of people around the world contributed to the process of crystallizing the Pact for the Future, from heads of state and government to international observers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society and experts from the UN itself.
With information from EFE
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2024-09-22 22:19:07