#multilateral system

As the world gathers this coming 24 April 2024 not to only commemorate, but also to celebrate the achievements of multilateralism and diplomacy, which has its best representation in the United Nations, humanity, and particularly the peoples of the Global South, suffers from the consequences of a global crisis with multiple dimensions, including, among others, in the climate, food, energy and finance fields, which, coupled with the negative impacts of ongoing wars and protracted conflicts, such as the one in the Gaza Strip, is only keeping us off track from honoring our pledge of leaving no one behind and ensuring the attainment, by 2030, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Objectives:

This commemorative Special Event aims to gather, among others, the Heads of the Principal Organs of the United Nations, as well as high-level representatives from Member States and Observers to the United Nations to engage in a frank and open discussion on how to strengthen and make truly more inclusive the multilateral system, on how to ensure strict compliance and adherence to the Charter of the United Nations, in both its letter and spirit, and on how to balance the participation of relevant stakeholders in some of the intergovernmental discussions within the framework of the three pillars of the United Nations, while ensuring that the intergovernmental nature of the Organization and the leading and central role of States is preserved.

Concept note -International Day for Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace 2024.

Watch The challenges of multilateralism and diplomacy for the fulfillment of the promise of the UN Charter in a polarized world.

In development through the Sustainable Development Goals and in conflict reduction through inclusive peace processes, the United Nations System has integrated this multi-actor approach to collective responses and is likely to continue to act as a hub for global cooperation networks. An effective multilateral platform remains indeed essential to address local and global challenges that only appear to grow in scale and complexity.

 We can neither deliver on existing commitments, nor successfully tackle emerging threats and challenges unless we dramatically strengthen the multilateral system.

The Goals under revision this year cannot be more pertinent:  poverty, hunger, climate and institutions. As we advance towards the Summit of the Future in September, the Pact for the Future is an opportunity to reiterate the path towards acceleration.

The Summit of the Future (22-23 September 2024) is a high-level event, bringing world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future. This once-in-a-generation opportunity serves as a moment to mend eroded trust and demonstrate that international cooperation can effectively tackle current challenges as well as those that have emerged in recent years or may yet be over the horizon.

The aim of the Summit is twofold: accelerate efforts to meet our existing international commitments and take concrete steps to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities.

This will be achieved through an action-oriented outcome document called the Pact for the Future.

The Pact will be negotiated, and endorsed by countries in the lead-up to and during the Summit in September 2024.

The result will be a world – and an international system – that is better prepared to manage the challenges we face now and in t

Since its foundation, the multilateral system – with the United Nations at its core – has aimed to deliver intergenerational public goods through its legal instruments, conventions and policies for peace, development, financial stability, human rights and the environment. Young people today believe in multilateral cooperation to ensure that their and their children's future is safeguarded.

Multilateralism is core to Europe's approach to Foreign Policy; but in recent years this has weakened as European Countries disagree among themselves.

The western interpretation of multilateralism is based on liberal internationalism. G. John Ikenberry argues that the logic of liberal internationalism is ‘captured in in a cluster of five conditions’: openness in terms of trade and exchange; commitment to a rules-based set of relations; some form of security cooperation; The idea that power politics can be " tamed'' by buildings stable relations in pursuit of mutual gains; And finally that Internationalism will foster the spread of liberal democracies.