By Shahnoor Saqib — SCN News
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 20 — Nearly 130 heads of state are converging on New York for the United Nations General Assembly this week with wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, disruption to global energy and food supplies and rapidly advancing artificial intelligence confronting an institution already struggling with financial pressure and divisions among the world’s major powers.
The 81st General Assembly’s high-level week begins as the United States-Israel conflict with Iran continues to destabilize the Middle East, Houthi advances and attacks threaten shipping around the Bab al-Mandab Strait and Russia’s war in Ukraine enters another difficult phase. At the same time, governments face disputes over AI governance, climate action and the future of the UN itself as Secretary-General António Guterres prepares to leave office at the end of the year.
The General Debate will run from Sept. 22 to 26 and resume on Sept. 28 at UN headquarters, under the theme “Restoring trust, managing transformation: A United Nations that delivers for all.” Bangladesh’s Khalilur Rahman, president of the General Assembly’s 81st session, will preside over a week that also includes high-level meetings on climate action, sea-level rise, pandemic preparedness, development and nuclear weapons.
President Donald Trump is expected to return to the General Assembly rostrum for a second consecutive year, placing U.S. policy at the center of several of the week’s most contentious debates. Trump has sharply reduced American engagement with parts of the UN system and pressed the organization for cuts and reforms. Washington paid $725 million toward the UN regular budget this week, avoiding the potential loss of its General Assembly vote, although Reuters reported that it still owes the organization more than $1 billion.
The gathering will nevertheless be missing one of the leaders of Washington’s principal strategic competitors. Chinese President Xi Jinping is skipping the New York meeting and is instead expected to hold talks with Trump in Washington on Thursday. Xi last addressed the General Assembly by video in 2021.
The Middle East is likely to dominate both formal speeches and diplomacy outside the General Assembly Hall. The continuing U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has added pressure to global energy markets, while the renewed Saudi-Houthi confrontation and insecurity around Bab al-Mandab have raised fears of further disruption to international shipping. Guterres has argued that the Yemen crisis is unlikely to have a straightforward military solution and said the UN envoy was continuing efforts to advance negotiations.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Wednesday, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to speak on Thursday. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity connected with Gaza; Israel rejects the allegations and the court’s jurisdiction over the case.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will again be absent from the chamber after the United States denied him a visa for a second consecutive year. The General Assembly voted on Thursday to permit Abbas to address the gathering by video, ensuring Palestinian representation at the leadership level despite the U.S. travel restriction.
Ukraine will provide the other major wartime focus. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are both scheduled to address the Assembly as Russia’s full-scale invasion moves through its fifth year. The Security Council has been unable to compel an end to the conflict, in large part because Russia is one of its five veto-wielding permanent members.
Trump entered his second term promising to seek an end to the war and spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, but no settlement has emerged. Whether Trump will meet Zelenskiy during the New York gathering remained unclear as leaders began arriving. The week will therefore provide another test of whether intensive diplomacy around the General Assembly can produce movement that the Security Council has been unable to deliver.
The Ukraine conflict is also returning to the UN agenda through its impact on global trade. Guterres has warned that disruption in the Black Sea is restricting Ukrainian and Russian exports of food, fertilizer and energy at the same time that the Middle East crisis is pushing up energy costs. A separate high-level event on Tuesday will bring together European and Ukrainian officials to discuss restoring freedom of navigation and protecting global food security in the Black Sea, with Zelenskiy attending as guest of honour.
Beyond the wars, artificial intelligence is emerging as one of UNGA81’s most consequential issues. Guterres has called for common international guardrails among countries developing the most advanced systems, warning against a technological race in which safety standards continually weaken. Trump has taken a sharply different approach, dismissing warnings about AI risks and arguing that excessive restrictions could benefit China.
The debate arrives as governments struggle to determine whether AI safety should remain primarily a national responsibility or require a global framework. Guterres told the Associated Press that advanced AI, climate change and widening inequality represent three major threats demanding international cooperation. The UN created an AI advisory body in 2023, but governments have yet to establish a comprehensive global regulatory system for frontier AI.
Climate will receive its own high-level forum on Wednesday. Guterres is convening leaders from major economies, vulnerable countries and large energy-producing and consuming states to discuss climate action and the transition away from high-emission energy systems. The UN says the meeting comes as the world enters a more difficult phase of the climate crisis even as investment and technology accelerate parts of the energy transition.
The gathering will also expose a broader problem confronting almost every issue on the agenda: the gap between the UN’s global mandate and its ability to compel major powers to act.
The Security Council remains deeply divided, particularly when conflicts involve permanent members or their close allies. Russia can veto council action over Ukraine, while the United States has repeatedly used its veto on Middle East resolutions it opposes. Guterres told AP that the resulting geopolitical divide has contributed to what he sees as increasing impunity and disregard for international law.
Those institutional strains coincide with a leadership transition. Guterres completes his second five-year term at the end of 2026, meaning this will be his final annual General Assembly gathering as secretary-general. No clear frontrunner has emerged to replace him, while the organization he will leave behind faces both financial constraints and demands for reform of institutions designed after World War Two.
Guterres has argued that the UN, Security Council and international financial institutions must better reflect the distribution of economic and political power in the 21st century. Developing countries have similarly pressed for greater representation in global decision-making, making institutional reform another theme likely to run beneath the more immediate debates over war and security.
That gives UNGA81 significance beyond the succession of speeches delivered from the green-marble rostrum. The General Assembly cannot by itself end the wars in Ukraine or the Middle East, override Security Council vetoes or compel governments to accept an international AI regime. But for one week it brings almost every major government into the same diplomatic space, creating opportunities for negotiations and meetings that rarely exist elsewhere.
The test in New York will therefore be whether that convening power can produce tangible diplomacy at a moment when the international system is under exceptional pressure. Leaders arrive with wars continuing on two major fronts, maritime routes under strain, food and energy prices exposed to geopolitical shocks and profound disagreement over how emerging technologies should be governed.
The speeches begin Tuesday. The larger question hanging over them is whether the multilateral system those leaders created to manage international crises can still translate diplomatic gathering into collective action.