This Week @UN: Argentina ditches multilateralism; exiled Belarusian opposition woos Australia; Israel keeps breaching international laws.
Plus: An African & European Unions “partnership”; COP30 gains & losses; mayhem against women.
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• Our #1 story: Justice Begins Within: For Greece, the UN’s Internal Courts Are Its Own Rule of Law, op-ed by Ioannis Karkalis and Aikaterini Koutsopoulou
PassBlue this week:
• Argentina’s Regrettable Abandonment of Multilateralism, op-ed by Ricardo Lagorio, from Buenos Aires
• Belarus’s Exiled Opposition Leader Courts Australia in the Pacific, by Clair MacDougall, from Melbourne
• How Israel Is Still Defying the World Court and the UN, op-ed by Mona Ali Khalil, from Vienna
Monday, Nov. 24
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Speaking at the annual African Union-European Union Summit, held in the Angolan capital of Luanda, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that as “technology barrels ahead, climate chaos reigns, and inequalities deepen,” the world needs a multipolarity network consisting of “intense relations on trade, development, financial institutions” with increasing political coordination. He pushed for a “partnership” between the AU and EU, which make up 40 percent of UN member states, that could be a “central axis” of the new multipolar world, saying: “Africa has the resources and a dynamic, young workforce. Europe has the capital and the technological know-how. . . .”
• Global downer: Despite noting such progress as a call to triple adaptation finance by 2035 and acknowledging the world is en route to “temporarily” surpass the 1.5 C degrees mark, Guterres said he “cannot pretend” that COP30, which ended on Nov. 22, “delivered everything that is needed.” He blamed political divides, which make consensus on a agreement “ever harder to reach.”
Tuesday, Nov. 25
• Kick-off: Here’s the long-awaited joint letter from the presidents of the UN General Assembly/Security Council to launch the “selection and appointment” process of the next secretary-general.
Our recent informal readers’ survey on who should be the next UN leader; ultimate guide on the selection process, by Ben Donaldson; “The P-5 Tighten Their Grip Over Selection of the Next UN Boss,” story by Damilola Banjo.
On Nov. 26, Argentina officially backed Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as a candidate for UN secretary-general. He joins two other official candidates so far: Michelle Bachelet of Chile and Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica.
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Guterres said in a video message that digital technology is intensifying the “global scourge” of violence against women and girls. He called for governments to criminalize online abuse and tech companies to ensure “safe platforms and communities rejecting online hate.” In a new UN Women/UNODC report on femicides in 2024, data show that in the last two decades the intentional murder of females — often at home by an “intimate partner” — has declined only by an estimated 0.2 percent annually, but too many systems don’t record the depth and breadth of femicides, according to Sarah Hendriks of UN Women. Yet, on Nov. 26, Italy passed a law making femicide a crime.
Relatedly, the General Assembly held the annual Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, presenting more sobering news that trafficking is growing and evolving. “Persistent drivers, such as poverty, displacement, discrimination, conflicts and climate disasters, are being compounded by the exploitation of technologies enabling traffickers to profit from human misery with unprecedented speed and reach,” Guy Ryder, UN under-secretary-general for policy, said, speaking for Guterres. AI is being weaponized to recruit, control and exploit victims.
Women and girls retain the biggest share of detected victims worldwide, trafficked mostly for sexual exploitation. The number of convictions for these crimes remains very low, particularly for people who have been trafficked into forced labor, Ryder said, adding that too often, “victims themselves are punished for acts committed under coercion — a clear violation of the principle of non-punishment.”
The US, however, did not sign the political declaration associated with the Assembly event, “which included topics unrelated to the actions necessary to address human trafficking effectively,” the US representative, Michael Heath, said in his remarks. “Moreover, while we allowed this declaration to be adopted by consensus, the United States must disassociate itself from paragraphs two, three, five, six, and twelve.”
Gaza updates, Nov. 25-26
The effect of heavy rains on people across Gaza continued after the last storm of Nov. 14, with an estimated 214,000 displaced people living in tents or other makeshift shelters on the coast hardest hit. The UN and partners are resorting to using empty sacks of flour and food to contain flooding in these sites. Part of the hurdles to managing the situation is “the systematic denial of critical items” and the Israeli ban on key aid groups operating in the enclave, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said. As of Sunday, Nov. 23, UNRWA has been running nearly 350 temporary “learning spaces” across 64 shelters for more than 47,000 boys and girls. — DULCIE LEIMBACH
Wednesday, Nov. 26
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Guterres’s personal envoy for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, will travel to Port Sudan and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to discuss the “urgent need” for civilian protection, Dujarric said, as the World Food Program (WFP) supports people who have fled to surrounding areas of El Fasher, including in Tawila (in North Darfur). As fighting continues to drive massive displacement in the Kordofan areas, more than 1,800 people have escaped from South Kordofan State, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), while in North Kordofan State, nearly 40,000 people fled from Oct. 25 to Nov. 18.
The
• Thursday, Nov. 27: The UN was closed for Thanksgiving, and no spokesperson’s briefing was held on Friday.
ICYMI:
Guinea-Bissau: Guterres regarding the Nov. 27 coup, statement
US/Russia: US Sides With Russia at UN Labor Agency as Trump’s Ukraine Peace Push Faces Skepticism, news
• UN’s Future: A new multilateralism. How are the UN and other global organizations adapting to a new world?, Chatham House event
• Geneva: The ICRC’s Room to Maneuver Is Shrinking, news
• Human Rights Watch: Philippe Bolopion Named Executive Director, news
• Ukraine/Russia: Timothy Snyder with Michael Weiss on Ukraine “peace plan,” Substack video
• Gaza: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation shuts, news
• Syria: The Last of Syria’s Political Prisoners Are Still Languishing in Lebanese Jails, Global Dispatch podcast episode
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on the next UN leader?
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Arthur Bassas is a researcher and writer who graduated from St. Andrews in Scotland, majoring in international relations and terrorism. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and speaks English and French.
