Analysis | UNGA games: What to expect during the U.N. General Assembly’s peak season
Now that world leaders have left New York, the U.N. General Assembly’s real work begins. Here is a guide to what to watch out for during a potentially dramatic season for multilateral diplomacy.
The recent headlines from the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) high-level week flowed steadily, and rightly so. Speaking to a packed General Assembly Hall, President Biden described a historic “inflection point” in terms of global crises and opportunity. Ukrainian President Zelensky called the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) “useless” in the face of Russia’s veto power. Secretary-General (SG) Guterres warned that the world stood at the “gates of hell” with respect to the climate crisis — and barred the United States and China from speaking at his Climate Ambition Summit. After several slower years due to COVID-19, the UNGA high-level week was back with gusto.
Now that the world leaders have jetted away, the marquee meetings have wrapped up, and First Avenue is navigable again, the General Assembly will settle in for three months of intensive negotiation and diplomacy on a dizzying scale. We will see dramatic U.N. elections. We will see major powers go head-to-head on a variety of topics, from “glorification of Nazism” to the budget. We could see new vetoes in the UNSC, prompting louder calls for reform. The action will probably run until the New Year.
The busiest U.N. season comes against a fractious backdrop. On August 30, Russia cast its third UNSC veto since last year’s high-level week, this time to shoot down a Mali sanctions resolution. At its summit in Havana on September 16–17, the U.N. Group of 77 bloc (G77–135 countries at the UN that self-identify as developing economies) and China urged the global south to “change the rules of the game” in the multilateral system. President Xi Jinping sent one of China’s most senior leaders, Politburo Standing Committee member Li Xi, to make the case that China was not only a champion of the global south; it was a member.
But on the U.N.’s biggest stage, President Biden was the only leader of a permanent five (P5) member of the Security Council to attend high-level week. His September 19 UNGA speech was an emphatic endorsement of multilateralism, both the U.N. variety and in terms of working with new groupings of partners. He cast the United States as having an interest in the success of the United Nations and its member states. “Our future is bound to yours,” he said. The president touted multilateral development banks, the G7, the G20, the Quad (the United States, Australia, India, and Japan), and other new groups as essential to navigating an “inflection point” in how the world confronts crises. For foreign policy practitioners and observers (and UNGA junkies like me), the remarks contained clear hints about diplomatic tussles to come this fall in New York.
What can we expect?
ICJ election, November 9: The November 9 election of judges for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should command attention. The ICJ is the world’s premier international legal venue where states try to settle disputes — such as territorial delimitation disagreements — before they become violent. The United States has had a judge on the court since it started work in 1946.
Nine candidates, including from the United States and Russia, are running to fill five positions on the court. The court has 15 judges overall. They are elected to nine-year terms. To win, a candidate must earn a simple majority of votes cast in the General Assembly and the Security Council. It’s an unusual format. Secret balloting occurs simultaneously in the two bodies and continues until five candidates exceed the 50 percent threshold regardless of a candidate’s regional bloc affiliation. The veto does not apply in the Security Council.
The United States is waging an assertive campaign in support of Sarah Cleveland, a standout Columbia Law School professor and international justice expert. President Biden praised her in his speech. Russia’s candidate, Kirill Gevorgian, is the country’s former ambassador to the Netherlands and is running as an incumbent.
Watch out for: The format can lead to surprise scenarios, such as in 2017, when an Indian candidate upset a British candidate in 11 tense rounds of voting. The United States will need to take nothing for granted.
Russia’s anti-Nazism resolution: Since 2012, Russia has run an annual UNGA resolution that calls for the rejection of “the glorification of Nazism.” The United States votes against it every year; in the U.S. view, Russia uses it to “legitimize Russian disinformation narratives,” as a senior U.S. diplomat put it last year. As recently as 2021, the text passed with 130 votes in favor and only two against (the United States and Ukraine). But in 2022, with Russia using “denazification” as a pretext for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States and 51 other countries voted against it. The EU and liberal, open countries were the main opponents of the text last year. Most other countries, including Israel, voted in favor.
Watch out for: This year, the United States, Ukraine, and its main partners will probably lobby middle powers and the global south hard to increase the “no” vote again. Their voting patterns on previous Ukraine-related resolutions suggest that accomplishing this objective will be difficult. But it is worth the challenge. Substantially boosting the nyets or even defeating the measure would be a win for Ukraine and its friends.
Budget talks: Every year, the General Assembly approves the U.N. budget. The Secretary General is requesting additional resources this year to strengthen the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He recently told the U.N. Human Rights Council that “our worst enemy [in combating rights violations] is complacency.”
Watch out for: China and Russia take a dim view of bolstering the U.N. human rights architecture because they consider most rights initiatives an assault on sovereignty. If they and their allies fight the proposal, a fraught process could stretch deep into the holiday season. The U.N. budget must be adopted in the General Assembly by consensus.
Security Council surprises: Of course, the UNSC could always upstage these consequential matters if new crises erupt around the world. Haiti is certain to generate debate.
The United States is lobbying intensively in support of a UNSC resolution to back a multinational force (MNF) to help stabilize Haiti — President Biden even promoted it in his remarks. Regional countries (and Kenya, which would lead the MNF) need the Security Council’s imprimatur before contributing personnel to the mission.
But Haiti has become contentious among the P5 mainly because China is unhappy Haiti recognizes Taiwan. Beijing is reluctant to greenlight initiatives that help the current government and could use the veto to block action. If that happened, however, China would find itself under the UNGA spotlight. A landmark UNGA resolution from 2022 says that a veto by one or more permanent members of the Security Council requires the UNGA president to convene a debate on the situation on which the veto was cast — so vetoes on any subject could cause theater in the General Assembly Hall. In addition, China could oppose an MNF because they see it as a gateway to a new UN peacekeeping operation they do not want to pay for (China pays 10 percent of the roughly $6 billion annual peacekeeping budget).
Watch out for: A new Chinese veto on a U.S. priority.
Expect the unexpected: The headlines of the day could generate UNGA action — such as a new resolution or a special session. Diplomats told me artificial intelligence, arms control, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and UNSC reform (among other issues) could attract attention among the U.N. membership. Whatever the case, the fall promises to be fascinating at U.N. Plaza, even if you are not an UNGA junky.
Christopher Klein is a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and a former principal deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.
The views expressed herein are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. government.
Read additional analysis from ISD on multilateral diplomacy:
