At UN General Assembly, Leaders Question Whether Multilateralism Still Works

World leaders wrapped up their annual gathering at the United Nations General Assembly this week with a shared diagnosis: the organization they profess to believe in is not delivering, and the gap between its founding ideals and its present reality has grown too wide to ignore.

Across more than 150 speeches, two themes recurred. Many leaders said they want the UN to work. Many also concluded that it does not.

"Where are the United Nations?" asked El Salvador's foreign minister, Alexandra Hill Tinoco, on Monday. "Do we have an organization that is still relevant?"

That question hung over the weeklong meeting, whose official theme was "restoring trust." Speaker after speaker probed the health of multilateralism — the principle that problems crossing borders, regions and oceans can be solved through cooperation and shared power. The concept was conceived in a different era, before pandemics, climate change and artificial intelligence moved to the centre of global affairs.

"Multilateralism is under siege," said Samoa's deputy prime minister, Mulipola Anarosa Ale-Molioʻo.

Algeria's foreign minister, Ahmed Attaf, called for "a shared home rather than an organization held hostage to the dominance of power politics." Sri Lanka's foreign minister, Vijitha Herath, said there are problems "which no country can solve alone."

A persistent tension ran through the speeches: the clash between multilateralism and sovereignty. Nations from North Korea to the Marshall Islands invoked the need for cooperation while insisting their sovereign rights would never be violated.

"We have never been so connected, yet we are increasingly unable to trust one another," said Grand Duke Guillaume, Luxembourg's head of state.

Monaco's minister of state, Christophe Mirmand, said simply that "states alone cannot make progress."

The push for change has intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic, when most diplomacy moved online, and has been amplified by island nations whose existence is threatened by rising seas. They argue that if larger countries with different interests make all the major decisions, smaller states will be left behind.

"The message to small nations is clear: Be as sovereign as we allow you to be," said Philip Edward Davis, prime minister of the Bahamas. "A sovereignty that requires permission is not a sovereignty."

Much of the frustration focused on the 15-member Security Council, which holds the UN's only real authority. Its five permanent members — the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France — have held veto power since the organization's founding after World War II. Other nations rotate through non-permanent seats but can neither veto nor block vetoes.

"The veto is a relic," said Matthew Wale, prime minister of the Solomon Islands. Chile's president, José Antonio Kast, said the world "simply cannot continue to play by the same rules of an order that was established in 1945."

African leaders were especially vocal in demanding permanent representation. The continent currently holds three rotating seats, but calls are growing for two permanent seats with veto power.

"Africa can no longer remain on the sidelines of situations that shape its destiny," said Constant-Serge Bounda, the Republic of Congo's foreign minister. "Africa is not asking for a favor. It is claiming its rightful place."

The week left an unmistakable message, as Austria's minister for European and International Affairs, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, put it: "The United Nations was not created to discuss international problems. It was created to solve them."