Reinvigorating Multilateralism Insights From The Un Summit Of The Futu

Leo Migdal

-Dec 3, 2025, 10:39 AM

reinvigorating multilateralism insights from the un summit of the futu

By Abdalla Sharief Hedi Bousnina Jakob Staubmann-03/10/2024 Summary:Drawing on her experience from a career at the United Nations, Michèle Griffin will discuss the recent UN Summit of the Future and what the negotiations tell us about the future of multilateralism at... Bio:In a career spanning nearly thirty years at the United Nations, Ms. Michèle Griffin has served as a senior policy advisor and director of policy planning to successive Secretaries-General, with responsibility for strategic thinking on emerging challenges, the geopolitical landscape and the future of international cooperation. Most recently, as Director of the Summit of the Future, she conceived and led the effort to negotiate the historic Pact for the Future - the most comprehensive global agreement in decades, encompassing new... The Pact is also the first agreement in decades on nuclear disarmament, outer space governance, and Security Council reform.

Previously, Ms. Griffin directed signature policy initiatives of the Secretary-General on such issues as COVID-19, hate speech, human rights, and conflict prevention. She played a key role in shaping the UN’s response to cholera in Haiti and in a variety of peacekeeping mission mandates and renewals, travelling with the Secretary-General to Haiti, Burundi, South Sudan, DR... She served for ten years in the UN’s Department of Political Affairs, where she set up and ran the United Nations Mediation Support Unit and its standby team of mediation experts, supporting peace processes... She played a role in major United Nations reform exercises, such as 2005 World Summit and the 2001 Brahimi report; and served as a Policy Advisor on Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding in UNDP. Her first UN assignment was at the Permanent Mission of Ireland to the United Nations, covering human rights.

Beyond the UN, she has worked in think tanks such as the International Peace Institute, the US Institute of Peace, and the Brookings Institution, been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and... She has lectured and published widely on global issues and geopolitics. She received her BA in European studies from Trinity College Dublin, where she was also a Foundation Scholar, and her Master’s degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. VIENNA, 3 October 2024 – UNIS Vienna Director Martin Nesirky opened the event by highlighting the significance of the Summit of the Future, held in September at UN Headquarters in New York. The summit gathered together global leaders to recommit to the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and to agree on concrete solutions to the pressing challenges humanity is facing. At the summit, Member States adopted a ‘Pact for the Future’ that includes two annexes – the first is the Global Digital Compact which aims to foster an inclusive, open, and secure digital space...

The second annex – the Declaration on Future Generations – adopts guiding principles, commitments, and actions to promote international stability for those generations not yet born. Nesirky emphasized the importance of keeping the Pact’s momentum with “Member States and Vienna-based UN organizations having a key role to play”. Loïc Simonet, researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, moderated the panel discussion and introduced the invited experts and practitioners of the UN system, all of whom hold diverse profiles and backgrounds. The panel consisted of Ambassador Alexander Marschik, Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations in New York, Rebecca Jovin, Chief of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) in Vienna, Markus Wane,... Ambassador Marschik alluded to one of the most significant impacts of the summit: the signed commitment of 193 Member States: “If there is a commitment among all Member States to come together to use... SDG: 2030 Agenda, Breaking the silos, SDG 17, SDG 17: Capacity-building, SDG 17: Systemic Issues

Dr. Stefan Schmitz (Executive Director of the Crop Trust), SDG: 2030 Agenda, Breaking the silos, Leave no one behind, SDG 15 SDG: 2030 Agenda, Breaking the silos, Leave no one behind, SDG 13 SDG: 2030 Agenda, Breaking the silos, SDG 17, SDG 17: Capacity-building Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the opening of the Summit of the Future, in New York today:

Welcome to the Summit of the Future. I thank the co-facilitators, the former and current Presidents of the General Assembly, and all Member States, for their strong engagement, creativity, and spirit of compromise; and all my colleagues for their invaluable efforts... We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink. I called for this Summit to consider deep reforms to make global institutions more legitimate, fair and effective, based on the values of the UN Charter. I called for this Summit because twenty-first century challenges require twenty-first century solutions: frameworks that are networked and inclusive; and that draw on the expertise of all of humanity. I called for this summit because our world is heading off the rails — and we need tough decisions to get back on track.

Conflicts are raging and multiplying, from the Middle East to Ukraine and Sudan, with no end in sight. Our collective security system is threatened by geopolitical divides, nuclear posturing and the development of new weapons and theatres of war. Resources that could bring opportunities and hope are invested in death and destruction. Huge inequalities are a brake on sustainable development. Many developing countries are drowning in debt and unable to support their people. And we have no effective global response to emerging, complex and even existential threats.

On September 22-23, heads of state and government will gather in New York for the Summit of the Future, which will open the high-level week of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly. The Summit has its origins in the 2021 report Our Common Agenda by UN Secretary-General António Guterres: it emphasises that today’s most pressing challenges can only be addressed through international cooperation. In the report – which was issued after the UN’s 75th anniversary, as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic – the Secretary-General proposed the Summit as an opportunity for countries to “forge a... Typically, UN member states individually consider each of the wide-ranging issues addressed at the assembly, negotiating resolutions for each agenda item. The Summit, however, provides an opportunity for member states to examine their cooperation more broadly, including on areas of intersection and overlap between issues that would normally be negotiated by different delegates in different... The centrepiece of the Summit will be the adoption of a Pact for the Future by the General Assembly, which covers five key areas:

The Pact will also include a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations as annexes. In theory, negotiations on the Pact for the Future ahead of the Summit could help UN member states to strengthen their commitment to multilateralism and re-energise efforts to collectively address global challenges. The reality, however, is shaping up to be far more pessimistic.

Reinvigorating Multilateralism Insights From The Un Summit Of The Futu

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