What’s the UN’s new ‘Pact for the Future’, and why did Russia oppose it?

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted an ambitious pact that aims to make the organisation more relevant and effective on the global stage in the 21st century amid mounting criticism over its failures to stop wars and hold to account those who violate its charter.

Russia and Iran were among seven nations to oppose the “Pact for the Future”, but they failed to prevent the document from proceeding during the summit that ran on Sunday and Monday.

Let’s take a look at the centrepiece document of the annual gathering in New York, the lofty goals it aims to achieve for the global community, and why Russia argued no one is fully satisfied with the text.

What’s the Pact for the Future?

The UN describes the pact as a “landmark declaration” pledging action towards an improved world for tomorrow’s generations.

The lengthy text adopted by the 193-member UNGA includes a pledge to move faster towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement commitments on climate change. It speaks of addressing the root causes of conflicts and accelerating commitments on human rights, including women’s rights.

It includes two annexe documents, called the Global Digital Impact, dealing with regulating artificial intelligence (AI), and the Declaration on Future Generations, which pushes for national and international decision-making to focus on securing the wellbeing of generations to come.

“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters on Sunday. “Now it is our common destiny to walk through it. That demands not just agreement, but action.”

The adoption of the Pact for the Future, the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations opens pathways to new possibilities and opportunities.

We have unlocked the door to #OurCommonFuture.

Now it is our common responsibility to walk through it. pic.twitter.com/Je7ilZIjq7

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) September 22, 2024

The pact covers a range of topics, with differing levels of ambition, and different UN forums and agencies will be responsible for following up on different topics, according to Richard Gowan, UN director at the Crisis Group.

“Some of the proposals are quite specific, like a request for the Secretary-General to review the state of UN peacekeeping operations. Others, such as a promise to work towards nuclear disarmament, are sadly more rhetorical flourishes than concrete proposals,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Nonetheless, it is important that UN members work out a proper implementation plan for the actionable parts of the pact, as we have often seen world leaders sign off on fine-sounding pledges at the UN and then fail to follow through on them.”

Does the pact spell out how it’ll make the world better?

Not really. As is often the case with UN resolutions and pledges, the Pact for the Future is packed with lofty goals and commitments but is thin on actual, realistic steps that the body can take to implement its own vision.

• The document asserts that nations “will end hunger and eliminate food security”, address global financing and investment gaps, commit to a fair multilateral trading system, achieve gender equality, protect the environment and the climate, and protect people affected by humanitarian emergencies. But it is silent on how the UN and its members will do this.
• As Israel’s war on Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war and the civil war in Sudan continue to claim lives, it recommits the UN to support the International Court of Justice (ICJ). But at a time when Israel has made it clear that it will not allow the UN court to affect its devastating war, in which more than 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza, the new pact does not spell out how the body plans to get members to follow its rules.
• The pact sets out a promise to revitalise obligations and commitments on disarmament of nuclear and biological weapons, “renew trust in global institutions” by making them more representative and responsive, and promote and protect human rights, including through fighting racism and xenophobia. Again, however, these are mere promises in the text.
• Reflecting growing dissatisfaction with deadlock and lack of global representation in the UN Security Council (UNSC), the document pledges to “redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority” and “improve representation” for Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. But the document makes no mention of how the UN will speed up reforms the Global South has been demanding for years.
• The Pact of the Future adds that it wants to accelerate the reform of the international financial architecture, bolster response to global shocks, and improve cooperation on exploring outer space and preventing an arms race there. But many of the countries leading the space race are also permanent members of the UNSC with veto powers that insulate them from any meaningful criticism.
• As many UN resolutions go unheeded, the pact pledges to “strengthen the response” of the UNSC and “revitalise” the work of the UNGA while strengthening the overall UN system, including the Economic and Social Council and the Peacebuilding Commission. How? No mention, again.

Gowan said many UN members believe UNSC reform is essential after the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, but actually cutting a deal would be difficult, as will be reforms of the international financial institutions.

“I think that overall developing countries had a bigger role in shaping this pact than they did in some previous UN reform processes, but the US still effectively defended its red lines on issues like the international financial system,” he said.

“The pact is far from perfect, and many people may feel it lacks the depth and urgency required to deal with the global polycrisis. But I think that we should be grateful diplomats could work out a deal at all in the current bleak environment.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addresses the summit as a main backer of the pact as his country facilitated the process of getting it adopted with Namibia [David Dee Delgado/Reuters]

So why the opposition?

Russia, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Syria and Nicaragua introduced a last-minute amendment to the draft resolution to assuage their criticism of the text, which mainly revolves around national sovereignty and the role of external entities in domestic affairs.

It added a paragraph that said the UN “shall be driven by intergovernmental decision-making process” and “its system shall not intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State” in line with the organisation’s charter.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin told the summit that those who coordinated the text over many months – Germany and Namibia – only included “what was dictated to them mainly by Western countries and ignored Russia’s repeated requests for intergovernmental negotiations on the text. He described this approach as “despotism”.

Unfortunately there is nothing to celebrate with the adoption of the #pactofthefuture by the UN today. The UN trampled on its own principles to please a group of delegations from the “beautiful garden” that usurped negotiations from the outset. And the majority from the “jungle”… https://t.co/dbX4Z2iX4R

— Dmitry Polyanskiy 🇺🇳 (@Dpol_un) September 22, 2024

Moscow, he said, would “distance itself from the consensus on this document”.

Vershinin also stressed that the pact could not be viewed as creating “new mandates and obligations” for states as it is “simply a declaration, and a very vague one”.

But the Republic of Congo – representing Africa’s 54 nations – and Mexico, a major Latin American power, rejected the amendments, preventing them from going through and paving the way for the document to be adopted.

The opposing countries are among the most heavily sanctioned nations in the world, largely subject to unilateral designations imposed by the United States and the European Union, as opposed to those adopted multilaterally in the top UN bodies.

The Crisis Group’s Gowan said Russia “read the room quite badly” and introduced last-minute changes when others had decided to proceed. Russia felt it had been disrespected after Germany and Namibia seemingly ignored some of its concerns, he said.

“I must admit that I am still quite confused about why Russia did not quietly withdraw its amendment, rather than face a vote on the issue it was bound to lose. Diplomats say that the Russians were offered quite a lot of opportunities to avoid this public defeat.”