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Universalizing Development, a Second UN Charter and the State of the World

Laura Dankowski - Tuesday, November 12, 2024
 Events   Multilateralism in Action News 

We're excited to share three updates. During the UN General Assembly's high-level week, we organized SIPA's inaugural State of the World Conference that focused on Implementing the Pact for the Future. Right on time for UN Day on October 24, we published two exciting new think-pieces, namely A Second United Nations Charter: Politically Impossible or Inevitable? by Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum, and Universalizing UN Development: A Forgotten Task for Effective Multilateralism by Max-Otto Baumann, senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, and Adolf Kloke-Lesch, former Director General of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

Multilateralism in Action

State of the World Conference:
Implementing the Pact for the Future

On Wednesday, 25 September, SIPA's UN Studies program and the Institute of Global Politics co-hosted the inaugural State of the World Conference on Implementing the Pact of the Future. If you missed the event you can watch the recording here:

  • Opening Remarks by IO/UNS Director, Prof. Daniel Naujoks (click here to watch)
  • Panel 1: Reform of Global Governance (click here to watch)
  • Panel 2: Reform of the International Financial Architecture (click here to watch)
Panel 1: Reform of Global Governance, moderated by SIPA Professor Jean-Marie Guéhenno focused on the Summit's key outcomes with regard to global governance and how to implement them meaningfully. Featuring Michèle Griffin, Director of Our Common Agenda and the Summit of the Future, Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General; Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum and MIA Candidate 2025 Saru Duckworth, the panel discussed a stronger role of the UN General Assembly, meaningful youth participation and the role of universities and other stakeholders to support the implementation through advisory, research, and other means.

Panel 2: Reform of the International Financial Architecture, moderated by SIPA Professor José Antonio Ocampo, discussed how the Pact’s vision to accelerate reform of the international financial architecture, including addressing existing inequities, mobilizing adequate financing to meet the SDGs, ensuring countries can borrow sustainably to invest in their long-term development, shielding countries equitably during systemic shocks, and enabling the international financial architecture to meet the challenge of climate change. Panelists Shari Spiegel, Director of the UN's Financing for Sustainable Development Office; Iyabo Masha, Director and Head of Secretariat, Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development (G-24); David Passarelli, Director of the UNU Centre for Policy Research and MIA Candidate Ariadne Mael N. Putri discussed in detail how the outcome of the Summit of the Future can be implemented in the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4).

And feel free to share our announcements on LinkedIn and X/Twitter.

Multilateralism in Action

In Universalizing UN Development: A Forgotten Task for Effective Multi-lateralism, Max-Otto Baumann, senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability and Adolf Kloke-Lesch, former Director General of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and former Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Germany, argue that the UN must build up an operational cooperation function within high-income countries. They argue that this is imperative if the UN wants to effectively address the challenges of global sustainable development. With growing pressure on planetary boundaries, interlinkages between countries (including through spillover effects), and the “blurring of North-South boundaries”, the need for sustainable development can no longer be seen as a function of a country’s (lower) income status. In addition, there is a political need for a new global governance, marked by equal relations and mutual accountability of UN member states. The present UN development system operates as a shadow of the traditional development cooperation regime, which is based on the concept that one group of countries has the problems and the other the solutions. If the UN development system is mainly understood as a service provider for “developing countries” only, funded by the rich countries, it only perpetuates symbolic inequalities and fosters operational weaknesses.

Universalizing UN development work requires and presupposes a profound conceptual change, but Baumann and Kloke-Lesch argue that this change would be rather inexpensive. They propose practical steps towards universality and a global agenda beyond 2030. 
 Read the full think-piece here and feel free to engage with this think-piece's announcements on BlueSky, X/Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Multilateralism in Action

Over the past two years, the Global Governance Forum organized a group of scholars, experts, practitioners, and former senior government officials, with deep knowledge of the United Nations, to work on the draft of a potential revised UN Charter. In A Second United Nations Charter: Politically Impossible or Inevitable?  Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director
of the Global Governance Forum, shares insights from this review and the proposals to amend the UN Charter. The suggestions include increasing the number of Security Council members, adding a Parliamentary Assembly that would turn the UN from an organization of states into an organization of states and peoples and thus enhance its representativeness and democratic legitimacy; and creating an Earth System Council tasked with environmental governance. Reviewing the UN’s collective security mechanism, the proposed second charter would review the need for rapid reaction capacities to minimize extensive and ongoing civilian harms, develop a more robust system of arms control and disarmament, and establish non-consensual collective enforcement means. Lopez-Claros suggests specific reforms for ECOSOC and suggests that the International Court of Justice be given compulsory jurisdiction, including a review function (akin to that of a constitutional court) for the UN itself. The think-piece calls for a UN Charter Review Conference and emphasized that the benefits of a fundamental UN reform outweigh its cost. The Second Charter initiative offers hope through sober, careful, tempered, and timely proposals for the next stage of global governance. 

Read the full think-piece here and feel free to engage with this think-piece's announcements on X/Twitter and LinkedIn.

In case you missed some of our recent think-pieces: 

  • South-South Cooperation: A Pathway to a Sustainable and Inclusive Future. By Dima Al-Khatib, the Director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation.
     
  • Who Is Behind the Expansion of UN Peacekeeping Mandates? By Kseniya Oksamytna, Senior Lecturer at City University of London and Visiting Research Fellow in the Conflict, Security and Development Research Group at King’s College London.
     
  • How Funding Sidelined Multilateralism at the United Nations: Then, Now, and Possible Futures, by Erin R. Graham, the Associate Professor of Global Affairs at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame
     
  • A new multilateralism for an old problem: Five ways in which the Global Refugee Forum brings a fresh way of responding to refugee situations, by Ruven Menikdiwela, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection with UNHCR
     
  • When Evidence Meets Power: Uncovering the Politics of Evaluation in the United Nations, by Vytautas Jankauskas Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Zeppelin University, and Steffen Eckhard, Professor of Public Administration and Public Policy, Zeppelin University
  • Multilateral Cooperation: Are Global Challenges Outpacing Global Unity? Pathways to Reignite Solidarity towards 2030, by Dennis Francis, President of the United Nations General Assembly

  • Much Attacked, Still Standing: How the International Legal Order is Attacked and Defended by Heike Krieger, Professor at Freie Universität Berlin, and Andrea Liese, Professor of International Relations, University of Potsdam

  • Inclusive Global Migration Governance: Embracing Non-State Actors and Cities for Multilateral Solutions by Raphaela Schweiger, 2023 Yale World Fellow and the Director of the Migration Program at the Robert Bosch Foundation

  • Multilateralism in an Age of Crises – Where do Countries at the Last Mile of Development fit in? by Habib Ur Rehman Mayar, Deputy General Secretary of g7+ Secretariat
  • Human Migration Needs a New Multilateralism, by Amy Pope, director general-elect of the International Organization for Migration

  • The SDGs have been declared dead – let’s bring them back to life!, by Svenja Schulze, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation
  • The International Civil Servant: Foot Soldier of Multilateralism by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Arnold Saltzman professor of practice and director of the Kent Global Leadership Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs

Stay engaged with, share, and contribute to our content.

  • Learn more about how to pitch a think-piece for MiA here.

  • Help us to spread the word on Twitter.

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Multilateralism in Action
Editor: Professor Daniel Naujoks
Director, International Organization & UN Studies Specialization 
School of International and Public Affairs 
Columbia University 
International Affairs Building – Room 821
420 W. 118th Street, New York, NY 10028

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