We are living in dangerous times. Summer time in the North of the planet means there is more news on music festivals and sport events than there is on politics and wars. People clearly prefer to think of holidays and not of the harsh times that other and less lucky people are living.

Armed conflicts are going on in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan, in Myanmar. A war is being fought in Ukraine, and a genocide is taking place in Gaza. Step by step, war is getting closer to the core countries of the European Union. In the European elections of June 2024, the winner was the far right, as it also was earlier on in Italy, Holland, Slovakia, Belgium, and France.

In Latin America, Argentinian President Javier Milei is proud of dismantling the State and producing a fiscal surplus while creating millions of new poor people. The International Monetary Fund is happy with this achievement. In the United States of America, chances of Donald Trump winning the November elections are real. Democracy is in danger.

Globalisation is being questioned everywhere. New protectionist measures are being taken and are obviously answered by other protectionist measures. Spiralling down towards… what? Can national sovereignty mean ‘closed borders’? Neoliberalism is said to be withering away, though till now financial markets are not being tackled. Only so-called ‘free trade’ sits on the dock and ‘national competitiveness’ is the new and sacred objective.

In the background, a serious shift in geopolitical relationships is happening and there is a serious threat to the hegemonic position of the United States, faced with rising powers such as China and India. This is, in a nutshell, the context in which the United Nations are preparing their ‘Summit of the Future’ to be held end of September 2025. In this ‘new world’ that was slowly in the making since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it should not be too difficult to define new objectives and new rules for a better cooperation and a better world future with concerns for climate change and the inequality gap.

In 2000 already, ‘Millennium Goals’ were defined which, formally, were met in 2015. The international community then agreed on ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ to be met by 2030. In the current state of affaires, these will be far more difficult to be reached.

In the meantime, the Secretary General’s report on ‘Our common agenda’ was adopted in 2021, mentioning the gaps and problems requiring new inter-governmental agreements. It called indeed for a ‘Summit of the Future’ to ‘forge a new global consensus on readying ourselves for a future rife with risks but also opportunities’. Faced with the ‘new’ problems of threats to the environment and the development of a rapidly growing digital sector, it should not have been too difficult to prepare this summit.

In 2015 already, the international community decided to ‘free the human race from the tyranny of poverty’. The Sustainable Development Goals still are the overarching road to follow. The necessary actions to be taken are clear, closing the financing gap, fighting illicit financial flows, corruption and tax avoidance, preparing an international tax cooperation convention, develop a better global trading system that has to be universal and rules based, fight the climate crisis, defend and promote human rights with gender equality, support all peace enforcements and protect civilians in armed conflicts, fight transnational organised crime, promote disarmament, protect intellectual property rights as well as all scientific, technological and digital cooperation. These are but some of the elements mentioned in the draft of the new ‘Pact for the Future’.

Assessing all the possible and necessary cooperations this planet needs has always been the task of the United Nations and the organisation has always been very good at it. Wording promises on which the whole international community can agree has also been one of the major achievements of the U.N. in the past, even if the international organisation has no power to make them reality. It therefore will always mention the ‘risks’ and ‘opportunities’, the ‘progress’ as well as the ‘setbacks’. The UN is a patient and well-intentioned actor and observer. Real decision-making power however is in the hands of the Member States.

Therefore, the issue becomes more difficult when new rules for global governance have to be decided on. This does not concern vague promises for possible future actions, they are concrete measures to be put in place immediately. And they touch on the power relations in today’s world. This is the reason why the reform of the Security Council is so very difficult. Everyone agrees on saying that the current rules are a ‘relic of the past’, with the winners of the Second World War having veto power. Power relations in the Security Council, the only body with real decision-making competences, do not reflect the geopolitical reality of today.

How to change, then? This debate has been on the agenda for thirty years now. Easy it is not, since no one wants to share or to relinquish power. Several proposals have been made already: voluntary refrain from using the veto, abolition of the veto, extension of the veto… As for the composition of the Security Council, it certainly has to be enlarged, but with whom?

The South Center published a very interesting document with concrete proposals and Charter amendments for transforming the non-military structures of global governance. They concern institutional changes, transforming the consultative practices in the UN system, changing the rules for global negotiations and changes in the governance itself. It concludes a proposal for new global courts, strengthening the link between ‘We the Peoples’ and the General Assembly and the creation of new inter-governmental bodies.

While everyone agrees to say that the reform is necessary, a consensus on the substance is far from easy and it is not sure an agreement can be reached by September. This is alarming news. Today, global governance is more necessary than ever, it should be made more representative and more effective, a new commitment to more international cooperation would be most welcome. It is far from sure it will happen.

Add to this serious problem concerning the delicate reform of the financial architecture. The World Bank and IMF will celebrate their 80th anniversary this autumn, and again, there is agreement to say a reform is necessary. And again, a consensus will be difficult to reach because here as well, reform means sharing or relinquishing power. The UN and the international financial organisations certainly are able to propose noble objectives and agree on interesting texts, but changing the power relations is a very and maybe impossible task if there is no general agreement on the need for it.

The same goes for the involvement of civil society. The opening sentence of the Charter of the UN ‘We, the peoples…’ has never been made reality, since only State representatives have a formal role. The General Assembly can count on the inputs of thousands of civil society organisations, but they have no real influence, except maybe for some representatives of big transnational corporations.

Nothing of all these reflections tend to be optimistic. The United Nations are one of the most important and relevant organisations the world community has. It would be very sad to see that today’s hegemonic powers prefer armed conflicts instead of practices and compromises to reach sustainable and lasting solutions. The climate crisis, the threats to biodiversity, rising far right political forces that put democracy and human rights in danger, the growing arms race… these are all factors that require real political courage and vision.