超越霸权——联合国宪章下的新国际秩序

https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizo??ns/horizo??ns-summer-2024--issue-no-27/beyond-hegemony

Jeffrey D. Sachs | 2024 年夏季 | Horizo??ns

由于三个相互关联的趋势的汇合，我们正处于人类历史的新阶段。首先，也是最关键的，西方主导的世界体系已经结束，在这个体系中，北大西洋地区的国家在军事、经济和金融上主宰世界。其次，以人类引起的气候变化、生物多样性的破坏和环境的大规模污染为标志的全球生态危机将导致世界经济和治理的根本变化。第三，人工智能、计算、生物技术、地球工程等多个领域的技术快速发展将深刻扰乱世界经济和政治。

这些相互关联的发展——地缘政治、环境和技术——正在引发巨大的不确定性、社会混乱、政治危机和公开战争。为了应对这些关键的发展，联合国秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯呼吁召开未来峰会（SOTF）（2024 年 9 月 22 日至 23 日在纽约联合国总部举行），以改革我们的国际机构，使其适应我们这个快速变化的世界。由于全球和平比以往任何时候都更加依赖联合国和国际法的效力，未来峰会应该成为全球治理的分水岭，即使它只是为未来几年进一步的谈判和审议指明了方向。

我们现有的国家和国际机构显然无法胜任我们这个快速变化的世界的治理任务。已故的伟大进化生物学家爱德华·威尔逊经常这样描述我们的困境：“我们带着石器时代的情感、中世纪的制度和近乎神一般的技术跌跌撞撞地进入了二十一世纪。”他的意思是，我们今天所面临的挑战，是凭借人类进化数万年所形成的基本认知和情感人性、几百年前形成的政治制度（美国宪法起草于 1787 年）以及闪电般的技术进步（ChatGPT 就是最新的奇迹）。

也许，深刻的社会变革最基本的事实就是不确定性，而对不确定性最基本的反应就是恐惧。事实上，如果正确使用技术进步，可以解决经济发展、社会公正（例如，通过数字连接改善医疗保健和教育机会）和环境可持续性（例如，快速过渡到零碳能源）方面的无数问题。然而，今天的情绪一点也不乐观，尤其是在西方。美国和俄罗斯在乌克兰爆发了公开战争，美国支持的以色列和巴勒斯坦之间也爆发了战争。华盛顿广泛、公开甚至随意地讨论了美国和中国之间爆发战争的可能性，尽管这样的战争可能意味着文明本身的终结。这些冲突的根源是恐惧，这种恐惧建立在我们石器时代的情感之上。

最大的恐惧是许多美国和欧洲政治领导人担心西方在几个世纪后正在失去霸权，而且霸权的丧失将带来灾难性的后果。英国前首相鲍里斯·约翰逊在 2024 年 4 月为英国《每日邮报》撰写的一篇专栏文章中明确表达了西方的这种恐惧，他说，如果西方在乌克兰战争中失败，“那将是西方霸权的终结”。

这就是乌克兰战争以及许多其他全球冲突的本质。美国及其盟友希望将北约扩展到乌克兰。俄罗斯坚决表示不。华盛顿和伦敦都准备与俄罗斯就北约扩张展开战争，以保护西方霸权（具体来说，是向俄罗斯决定安全安排的权利），而俄罗斯则准备展开战争以阻止北约加入。事实上，俄罗斯在战场上战胜了乌克兰军队和北约军备。这并不奇怪。令人惊讶的可能是西方完全低估了俄罗斯的能力。

从广义上讲，随着全球秩序的变化，包括中国和东亚其他国家的崛起、俄罗斯的军事和技术实力、印度的快速发展以及非洲的日益团结，西方主导的世界已经走向终结，这不是因为西方的动荡崩溃，而是因为世界其他国家不断增长的经济、技术和军事实力。原则上，西方没有理由害怕其他国家的崛起，因为美国和欧洲仍然保持着压倒性的威慑力，包括核威慑，以抵御来自外部的任何军事威胁。西方正在哀叹其相对地位的丧失——即指挥他人的能力——而不是任何真正的军事力量

西方的不安全感。

未来几年，没有什么能够恢复西方的霸权——无论是军事胜利、技术进步还是经济影响力。先进的军事、技术、经济和金融能力向亚洲及其他地区的崛起是不可阻挡的（当然也不应该被阻止，因为它意味着一个比以前西方主导的世界更加公平和繁荣的世界）。然而，西方霸权的终结并不意味着新的中国、印度或亚洲霸权。权力中心实在太多了——美国、欧盟、中国、俄罗斯、印度、非洲联盟等——而且能力和多样性太多了，任何其他霸权都无法取代西方主导的世界秩序。在西方统治了几个世纪之后，我们已经进入了一个超越霸权的世界。

这个超越霸权的新世界应该成为未来峰会的起点。美国、英国和欧盟不应该像鲍里斯·约翰逊幻想的那样，徒劳地试图维持其霸权，或者同样地，为了保护美国自称的“基于规则的秩序”——这是一个空洞的表达，设想规则仅由美国决定。他们应该作为新多极世界的一部分，寻求解决生态、技术、经济和其他重大挑战的解决方案。新秩序应以经过适当改革的联合国宪章下的多边主义和国际法为基础。

作为联合国可持续发展解决方案网络（SDSN）主席，我有机会与世界各地的大学领导、科学家、技术专家、政策制定者和政治家讨论人类的未来，共同设想一个繁荣、公平、可持续、和平的未来，让全世界都过上和平的生活，而不是让西方特权阶层或世界上任何其他小部分国家过上和平的生活。SDSN 是一个由 2000 多所大学和智库组成的全球网络，致力于可持续发展，特别是联合国的可持续发展目标。基于这些广泛的讨论，SDSN 发表了关于未来峰会的声明，回应了峰会决策的五个主要“章节”：（1）实现可持续发展；（2）确保全球和平；（3）管理尖端技术；（4）为我们的新世界教育年轻人；（5）改革联合国机构，使其适应 21 世纪后霸权平衡。

以下是可持续发展目标网络核心建议的摘要。

实现可持续发展

1.1 可持续发展目标议程应继续成为 2050 年全球合作的核心。

可持续发展目标最初设定为 2016 年至 2030 年的十五年，紧随千年发展目标 (MDG) 的十五年期限。显然，可持续发展目标不会在原定的时间范围内实现。我们强烈敦促 SOTF 认识到可持续发展目标在协调国家、地区和全球政策方面的关键作用，并致力于可持续发展目标框架直至 2050 年，以加强已在进行的努力，并认识到将世界经济重新定位为可持续发展所需的时间范围。2050 年的新视野并不意味着努力的松懈。相反，这意味着要改进长期规划，以实现雄心勃勃的 2050 年目标和 2050 年里程碑。

1.2 可持续发展议程应得到适当资助。

学术界、布雷顿森林体系和联合国机构提供的所有证据表明，较贫穷国家实现可持续发展目标所需的投资速度仍然存在巨大缺口。为了调动人力和基础设施资本所需的投资流，必须改革全球金融架构，使其适合可持续发展。主要目标是确保较贫穷的国家有足够的资金，无论是来自国内还是外部来源，并且在资本成本和贷款期限方面具有足够的质量，以扩大实现可持续发展目标所需的投资。

1.3 各国和各地区应制定中期可持续发展战略

可持续发展总体上和可持续发展目标具体上需要长期的公共投资计划、转型路径和使命导向，以提供实现可持续发展目标所需的公共产品和服务。为此，所有国家和地区都需要制定实现可持续发展目标的中期战略。这些战略应着眼于 2050 年，在某些情况下甚至更远，为实现可持续发展目标的地方、国家和地区投资以及实现绿色、数字化和包容性社会所需的技术转型提供一个综合框架。

实现国际和平与安全

2.1 应加强和扩大不干涉的核心原则。

对全球和平的最大威胁是一个国家干涉其内政

任何干涉别国事务的行为都违反了《联合国宪章》的文字和精神。这种干涉，无论是战争、军事胁迫、秘密政权更迭行动、网络战、信息战、政治操纵和融资，还是单方面胁迫措施（金融、经济、贸易和技术），都违反了《联合国宪章》，并引发了难以言喻的国际紧张局势、暴力、冲突和战争。

为此，联合国会员国应决心终止任何国家（或国家集团）对另一个国家或国家集团内政的非法干涉措施。《联合国宪章》、联合国大会决议和国际法所载的不干涉原则应在以下方面得到加强。

首先，任何国家都不应通过资助或其他方式支持政党、运动或候选人干涉任何其他国家的政治。

其次，任何国家或国家集团都不应采取单方面胁迫措施，联合国大会对此已多次予以承认。

第三，在《联合国宪章》下运作的世界，各国没有必要永久驻扎外国军队，除非根据联合国安理会的决定。现有的海外军事基地数量应大幅减少，目标是在未来 20 年内逐步取消和消除海外军事基地。

2.2 应加强联合国安理会和其他联合国机构，以维护和平并维护联合国成员国的安全。

应改革、扩大联合国安理会，并赋予其权力，以根据《联合国宪章》维护和平。联合国安理会结构的改革将在下文第 5 节中描述。??在这里，我们强调联合国安理会的权力和工具的增强，包括安理会内部的绝对多数投票以克服一个成员的否决权；禁止国际武器流入冲突地区的权力；加强调解和仲裁服务；以及增加对建设和平行动的资助，特别是在低收入环境中。

除安理会外，还应加强其他全球维和、人权和国际法的重要工具。这些包括国际法院和国际刑事法院的权威和独立性、联合国人道主义援助（特别是在战区）的功能和支持，以及联合国人权理事会在捍卫和促进《世界人权宣言》方面的作用。

2.3 核大国应重返核裁军进程。

全球生存的最大危险仍然是热核战争。在这方面，拥有核武器的十个国家有紧迫的责任遵守《不扩散核武器条约》第六条的规定，“以诚意进行谈判，以尽早停止核军备竞赛和核裁军的有效措施，以及在严格有效的国际监督下达成全面彻底裁军条约”。所有国家，特别是核大国，都应批准并遵守2017年《禁止核武器条约》。

管理尖端技术

3.1 加强技术风险的多边治理。

世界正在经历一系列科学、技术和应用领域先进技术的力量、复杂性和风险的空前进步。这些包括生物技术，包括增强病原体和创造新生命形式的能力；人工智能，包括普遍监视、间谍活动、成瘾、自主武器、深度伪造和网络战的可能性；核武器，特别是更强大、更具破坏性的武器的出现及其在国际控制之外的部署；以及地球工程，例如改变大气和海洋化学成分或偏转太阳辐射以应对人为气候变化的提议。

我们呼吁联合国大会建立紧急程序，对每一类尖端技术进行全球监督，包括授权相关联合国机构每年向联合国大会报告这些技术发展情况，包括其潜在威胁和监管监督要求。

3.2 普遍获得重要技术。

本着第 3.1 节的精神，我们还呼吁联合国大会建立和支持全球和区域卓越、培训和生产中心，以确保世界各地都有权参与真正支持可持续发展（而不是过度军事化）的先进技术的研发、生产和监管监督。世界所有地区的大学

世界应培养和培育推动可持续发展所需的下一代优秀工程师和科学家，他们在能源、工业、农业和建筑环境的结构转型方面拥有专业知识。特别是应支持非洲在未来几年建设世界一流的大学。

3.3 普遍享有研发能力和平台。

我们比以往任何时候都更需要为贫穷国家和地区的科学家提供开放科学，包括普遍免费获取科学和技术出版物，以确保公平和包容地获取将塑造二十一世纪全球经济和全球社会的先进技术知识和专业知识。

为可持续发展而教育青年

4.1 我们呼吁未来峰会优先考虑让地球上的每个儿童都能获得人力资本的核心投资，并创造新的全球长期融资模式，以确保不迟于 2030 年实现每个儿童获得优质小学和中学教育、营养和医疗保健的人权。

4.2 普及可持续发展和全球公民教育（Paideia）。

在通过可持续发展目标时，联合国成员国明智地认识到有必要教育世界儿童应对可持续发展的挑战。他们通过了可持续发展目标 4.7 来做到这一点：

“4.7 到 2030 年，确保所有学习者获得促进可持续发展所需的知识和技能，包括通过可持续发展和可持续生活方式教育、人权、性别平等、促进和平和非暴力文化、全球公民意识以及欣赏文化多样性和文化对可持续发展的贡献等”

目标 4.7 实际上是对 21 世纪 paideia 的呼吁，paideia 是古希腊关于城邦所有公民应获得的核心知识、美德和技能的概念。今天，我们拥有一个全球城邦——一个全球公民——必须具备在全世界培养和促进可持续发展价值观和尊重人权的能力。我们呼吁未来峰会加强目标 4.7，并在世界各地的可持续发展教育中将其付诸实践。这不仅包括各级教育课程的更新和升级，还包括在生命周期的各个阶段培训绿色、数字化和可持续经济所需的技术和道德技能，这些技能是互联世界中的绿色、数字化和可持续经济所必需的。

4.3 青年和未来世代理事会

通过培训、教育、指导和参与公共审议赋予青年权力，可以培养致力于可持续发展、和平和全球合作的新一代。新的联合国青年和未来世代理事会可以加强联合国在培训和赋予青年权力方面的活动，并为当今复杂的挑战提供重要的全球青年声音。

根据《联合国宪章》改变全球治理

5.1 应该建立联合国议会。

世界各地的民间社会、学者和公民呼吁通过在联合国建立“我们人民”的代表来加强全球机构。我们建议首先根据《联合国宪章》第二十二条（“大会得设立其认为履行职务所必需之附属机关”），设立“联合国议会大会”，作为联合国大会的附属机构。新的联合国议会大会将由各国议会代表组成，并按照联合国大会确定的代表原则组成。

5.2 应设立其他联合国附属机构。

联合国大会应根据第二十二条赋予的权力，根据需要设立新的附属机构，以支持可持续发展进程和联合国机构的代表性。新的附属机构可能包括：

地区理事会，使东盟、欧盟、非洲联盟、欧亚经济联盟等区域机构具有代表性；

城市理事会，使城市和其他次国家管辖区的代表性得以体现；

土著人民理事会，代表全世界约 4 亿土著人民；

文化、宗教和文明理事会旨在促进和平和非暴力文化、全球公民意识以及对文化多样性、宗教和文明的欣赏；

青年和未来世代理事会旨在代表当今青年和后代的需求和愿望（见上文第 4.3 节）；

人类世理事会旨在支持和加强联合国机构在实现多边环境协定（包括《巴黎气候协定》和

昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架）和可持续发展目标的环境目标。

5.3 应改革联合国安理会的成员和权力

我们呼吁联合国安理会和联合国大会对安理会结构和程序进行迫切需要的改革。这些改革应包括：（1）增加印度作为常任理事国，考虑到印度占人类人口的 18% 以上，是按购买力平价计算的世界第三大经济体，以及其他表明印度在经济、技术和地缘政治事务方面具有全球影响力的属性；（2）采用程序以绝对多数（可能占四分之三的选票）推翻否决权；（3）扩大和重新平衡总席位，以确保世界所有地区相对于其人口比例都有更好的代表性；（4）采用新的工具来应对和平威胁，如第 2.2 节所述。

反思与再思考

我们新世界体系的最基本原则必须是各国之间的相互尊重。世界面临着深刻而前所未有的挑战——环境破坏、广泛的政治不稳定、尖端技术的武器化以及财富和权力不平等的急剧扩大——这些挑战只有通过各国之间的和平合作才能解决。然而，尽管合作迫在眉睫，但我们正走向更广泛的战争。

联合国在很大程度上是一个未完成的工作。它创造了一个非常不同的世界，一个在二战后中期由美国主导的世界。联合国已有 79 年历史，在善治和国际治国之道这一古老挑战中仍处于起步阶段。在一个充斥着越来越强大的武器，尤其是核武器的世界里，解决和平合作的挑战是最重要的挑战。

因此，在人类面临前所未有的挑战之际，未来峰会是反思和重新考虑如何治理我们新的多极世界的关键时刻。世界面临的挑战当然不会在九月的会议上得到解决，但未来峰会仍然可以成为新全球治理的重要起点，世界所有地区都将通过合作为全球共同利益作出贡献。

Beyond Hegemony - A New International Order Under the UN Charter

https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horizons-summer-2024--issue-no-27/beyond-hegemony
Jeffrey D. Sachs   |   Summer 2024   |   Horizons

We are at a new phase of human history because of the confluence of three interrelated trends. First, and most pivotal, the Western-led world system, in which countries of the North Atlantic region dominate the world militarily, economically, and financially, has ended. Second, the global ecological crisis marked by human-induced climate change, the destruction of biodiversity, and the massive pollution of the environment, will lead to fundamental changes of the world economy and governance. Third, the rapid advance of technologies across several domains—artificial intelligence, computing, biotechnology, geoengineering—will profoundly disrupt the world economy and politics.

These interconnecting developments—geopolitical, environmental, and technological—are stoking huge uncertainties, societal dislocations, political crises, and open wars. To address these pivotal developments, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a Summit of the Future (SOTF) (September 22-23rd, 2024 at the UN headquarters in New York) to reform our international institutions so that they are fit for purpose in our fast-changing world. Since global peace depends more than ever on the efficacy of the UN and international law, the SOTF should be a watershed in global governance, even if it does no more than point the way to further negotiation and deliberation in the years immediately ahead.

Our existing institutions, both national and international, are certainly not up to the task of governance in our fast-changing world. The late, great evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, often described our predicament as follows: “We have stumbled into the twenty-first century with stone-age emotions, medieval institutions, and near godlike technologies.” By this he meant that we face our challenges today with the basic cognitive and emotional human nature that was formed by human evolution tens of thousands of years ago, with political institutions forged centuries ago (the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787), and with the lightning speed of technological advance (think of ChatGPT as just the latest wonder).

Perhaps the most basic fact of deep societal change is uncertainty, and the most basic reaction to uncertainty is fear. In fact, the technological advances—if used correctly—could solve innumerable problems in economic development, social justice (e.g., improved access to healthcare and education through digital connectivity), and environmental sustainability (e.g., a rapid transition to zero-carbon energy sources). Yet the mood today is anything but optimistic, especially in the West. Open wars rage between the United States and Russia in Ukraine, and between U.S.-backed Israel and Palestine. The possibility of war between the United States and China is widely, openly, and even casually discussed in Washington, though such a war could mean the end of civilization itself. At the root of these conflicts is fear, built on our stone-age emotions.

The biggest fear of all is that of many American and European political leaders that the West is losing its hegemony after centuries, and that somehow the loss of hegemony will have catastrophic consequences. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made this Western fear explicit in an April 2024 column for the UK’s Daily Mail, when he stated that if the West loses the war in Ukraine, “it will be the end of Western hegemony.”

Herein lies the essence of the Ukraine war, and many other global conflicts as well. The United States and its allies want to expand NATO to Ukraine. Russia has firmly said no. Both Washington and London were ready to fight a war with Russia over NATO enlargement to protect Western hegemony (specifically, the right to dictate security arrangements to Russia), while Russia was ready to fight a war in order to keep NATO away. In fact, Russia is prevailing on the battlefield over Ukraine’s army and NATO’s armaments. This is not surprising. What is perhaps surprising is how the West completely underestimated Russia’s capabilities.

In broad terms, with the changing global order, including the rise of China and the rest of East Asia, the military and technological strength of Russia, the rapid development of India, and the growing unity of Africa, the Western-dominated world has been brought to an end, not by a tumultuous collapse of the West, but by the growing economic, technological, and therefore military, power of the rest of the world. In principle, the West has no reason to fear the rise of the rest, as the United States and Europe still maintain an overwhelming deterrence, including nuclear deterrence, against any military threat from the outside. The West is bemoaning its loss of relative status—the ability to dictate to others—not any real military insecurity.

Nothing is going to restore Western hegemony in the coming years—no military victory, technological advance, or economic leverage. The rise of advanced military, technological, economic, and financial capacities to Asia and beyond, is unstoppable (and of course should not be stopped, since it signifies a world that is fairer and more prosperous than the preceding Western-dominated world). Yet, the end of Western hegemony does not mean a new Chinese, Indian, or Asian hegemony. There are simply too many power centers—the United States, the EU, China, Russia, India, the African Union, etc.—and too much capacity and diversity to enable any other hegemon to replace the Western-led world order. We have arrived, after centuries of Western dominance, to a world beyond hegemony.

This new world, beyond hegemony, should be the starting point for the Summit of the Future. The United States, UK, and the EU should come to the Summit not in a vain attempt to sustain their hegemony (as Boris Johnson fantasizes), or equivalently, to protect America’s self-declared “rules-based order”—a vacuous expression that envisions the rules as determined by the United States alone. They should come as part of a new multipolar world looking to find solutions to profound ecological, technological, economic, and other challenges. The new order should be based on multilateralism and international law under a suitably reformed UN Charter.
 

As President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)—a worldwide network of more than 2,000 universities and think tanks dedicated to sustainable development generally and to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) specifically—I have the opportunity to discuss humanity’s future with university leaders, scientists, technologists, policymakers, and politicians around the world, with the goal of envisioning a future that is prosperous, fair, sustainable, and peaceful for all of the world, not for a privileged West or any other small part of the world. Based on these extensive discussions, the SDSN issued a Statement on the Summit of the Future, responding to the five main “Chapters” for decisionmaking at the Summit: (1) achieving sustainable development; (2) ensuring global peace; (3) governing the cutting-edge technologies; (4) educating young people for our new world; and (5) reforming the UN institutions to make them fit for the post-hegemonic balance of the twenty-first century. 

Here is a summary of the core recommendations of the SDSN.

Achieving Sustainable Development

1.1  The SDG Agenda should remain the core of global cooperation to 2050.

The SDGs were initially set for the fifteen-year period between 2016 and 2030, following the fifteen-year period of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is clear that the SDGs will not be achieved in the original time frame. We strongly urge that the SOTF recognize the pivotal role of the SDGs in aligning national, regional and global policies, and commit to the SDG framework until 2050, so as to reinforce the efforts already underway and recognize the time horizon needed to reorient the world economy to sustainable development. The new horizon of 2050 does not mean a slackening of effort. Rather, it means improved long-term planning to achieve highly ambitious 2050 goals and milestones on the way to 2050. 

1.2  The Sustainable Development agenda should be properly financed.

All evidence developed by academia, the Bretton Woods system, and UN institutions is that there remains a massive shortfall in the pace of investments needed for the poorer nations to achieve the SDGs. In order to mobilize the needed investment flows for human and infrastructure capital, the global financial architecture must be reformed and made fit for sustainable development. The major objective is to ensure that the poorer countries have adequate financing, both from domestic and external sources, and at sufficient quality in terms of the cost of capital and the maturity of loans, to scale up the investments required to achieve the SDGs.

1.3  Countries and regions should produce medium-term sustainable development strategies

Sustainable Development in general and the SDGs specifically, require long-term public investment plans, transformation pathways, and a mission orientation to provide the public goods and services required to achieve the SDGs. For this purpose, all nations and regions need medium-term strategies to achieve the SDGs. These strategies, with a horizon to the year 2050, and in some cases beyond, should provide an integrated framework for local, national, and regional investments to achieve the SDGs, and for the technological transformations needed to achieve green, digital, and inclusive societies. 
 

Achieving International Peace and Security

2.1  The core principles of non-intervention should be reinforced and extended. 

The greatest threat to global peace is the interference by one nation in the internal affairs of another nation against the letter and spirit of the UN Charter. Such interference, in the form of wars, military coercion, covert regime-change operations, cyberwarfare, information warfare, political manipulation and financing, and unilateral coercive measures (financial, economic, trade, and technological), all violate the UN Charter and generate untold international tensions, violence, conflict, and war.

For this reason, the UN member states should resolve to end illegal measures of intervention by any nation (or group of nations) in the internal affairs of another nation or group of nations. The principles of non-intervention, enshrined in the UN Charter, UN General Assembly Resolutions, and international law, should be reinforced along the following lines. 

First, no nation should interfere in the politics of any other country through the funding or other support of political parties, movements, or candidates. 

Second, no nation or group of nations should deploy unilateral coercive measures, as recognized repeatedly by the UN General Assembly.

Third, in a world operating under the UN Charter, there is no need for nations to permanently station military forces in foreign countries other than according to UN Security Council decisions. Existing overseas military bases should be reduced dramatically in number with the aim of phasing out and eliminating overseas military bases over the course of the next 20 years. 

2.2  The UN Security Council and other UN agencies should be strengthened to keep the peace and sustain the security of UN member states.

The UN Security Council should be reformed, expanded, and empowered to keep the peace under the UN Charter. Reform of the structure of the UN Security Council is described in Section 5 below. Here we emphasize the enhanced power and tools of the UN Security Council, including super-majority voting within the Security Council to overcome the veto by one member; the power to ban the international flow of weapons to conflict zones; strengthened mediation and arbitration services; and enhanced funding of peacebuilding operations, especially in low-income settings. 

In addition to the Security Council, other key instrumentalities of global peacekeeping, human rights, and international law should be strengthened. These include the authority and independence of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, the functionality and support for UN-based humanitarian assistance especially in war zones, and the role of the UN Human Rights Council in defending and promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

2.3  The nuclear powers should return to the process of nuclear disarmament.

The greatest danger to global survival remains thermonuclear war. In this regard, the 10 nations with nuclear weapons have an urgent responsibility to abide by the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) mandate under Article VI “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” All nations, and especially the nuclear powers, should ratify and comply with the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 

Governing Cutting-Edge Technologies 

3.1  Enhancing the multilateral governance of technological risks.

The world is experiencing unprecedented advances in the power, sophistication, and risks of advanced technologies across a range of sciences, technologies, and applications. These include biotechnology, including the ability to enhance pathogens and create new forms of life; artificial intelligence, including the potential for pervasive surveillance, spying, addiction, autonomous weapons, deep fakes, and cyberwarfare; nuclear weapons, notably the emergence of yet more powerful and destructive weapons and their deployment outside of international controls; and geoengineering, for example proposals to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans, or to deflect solar radiation, in response to anthropogenic climate change.

We call on the UN General Assembly to establish urgent processes of global oversight of each class of cutting-edge technologies, including mandates to relevant UN agencies to report annually to the UN General Assembly on these technological developments, including their potential threats and requirements of regulatory oversight. 

3.2  Universal access to vital technologies.

In the spirit of Section 3.1, we also call upon the UN General Assembly to establish and support global and regional centers of excellence, training, and production to ensure that all parts of the world are empowered to participate in the research and development, production, and regulatory oversight of advanced technologies that actually support sustainable development (rather than hyper-militarization). Universities in all regions of the world should train and nurture the next generation of outstanding engineers and scientists needed to drive sustainable development, with expertise in structural transformations in energy, industry, agriculture, and the built environment. Africa in particular should be supported to build world-class universities in the coming years. 

3.3  Universal access to R&D capacities and platforms. 

More than ever, we need open science for scientists in poorer countries and regions, including universal free access to scientific and technical publications, to ensure the fair and inclusive access to the advanced technological knowledge and expertise that will shape global economy and global society in the twenty-first century. 
 

Educating Youth for Sustainable Development 

4.1  We call on the Summit of the Future to prioritize the access of every child on the planet to the core investments in their human capital, and to create new modalities of global long-term financing to ensure that the human right of every child to quality primary and secondary education, nutrition, and healthcare is fulfilled no later than 2030. 

4.2  Universal education for sustainable development and global citizenship (Paideia). 

In adopting the SDGs, the UN member states wisely recognized the need to educate the world’s children in the challenges of sustainable development. They did this in adopting Target 4.7 of the SDGs:

“4.7 By 2030 ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development”

Target 4.7 is, in effect, the call for a twenty-first-century paideia, the ancient Greek concept of the core knowledge, virtues, and skills that should be attained by all citizens of the Polis. Today, we have a global polis—a global citizenry—that must be equipped to foster and promote the values of sustainable development and the respect of human rights throughout the world. We call on the Summit of the Future to reinforce Target 4.7 and bring it to life in education for sustainable development around the world. This includes not only an updated and upgraded curriculum at all levels of education, but training at all stages of the life-cycle in the technical and ethical skills needed for a green, digital, and sustainable economy in an interconnected world. 

4.3  Council of Youth and Future Generations 

The empowerment of youth, by training, education, mentorship, and participation in public deliberations, can foster a new generation that is committed to sustainable development, peace, and global cooperation. A new UN Council of Youth and Future Generations can strengthen the UN’s activities in training and empowering young people and can provide a vital global voice of youth to today’s complex challenges. 
 

Transforming Global Governance Under the UN Charter

5.1  There should be the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly.

Around the world, civil society, scholars, and citizens have called for strengthening global institutions by establishing representation of “We the Peoples” in the UN. We propose as a first instance to establish a “UN Parliamentary Assembly” as a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly according to Article XXII of the UN Charter (“The General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions.”). The new UN Parliamentary Assembly would be constituted by representative members of national parliaments, upon principles of representation established by the UN General Assembly. 

5.2  Other UN subsidiary bodies should be established.

Invoking the powers under Article XXII, the UN General Assembly should establish new subsidiary chambers as needed to support the processes of sustainable development, and the representativeness of UN institutions. The new chambers might include, inter alia:

• A Council of the Regions to enable representation of regional bodies such as ASEAN, the EU, African Union, Eurasian Economic Union, and others;

• A Council of Cities to enable representation of cities and other sub-national jurisdictions;

• A Council of Indigenous Peoples to represent the estimated 400 million indigenous peoples of the world;

• A Council of Culture, Religion, and Civilization’ to promote a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation for cultural diversity, religion, and civilizations;

• A Council of Youth and Future Generations to represent the needs and aspirations of today’s youth and of generations to come (see Section 4.3 above);

• A Council on the Anthropocene to support and enhance the work of the UN agencies in fulfilling the aims of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (including the Paris Climate Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework) and the environmental objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals.

5.3  The UN Security Council Should Be Reformed in Membership and Powers 

We call on the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly to adopt urgently needed reforms of the Security Council structure and processes. These should include: (1) the addition of India as a permanent member, considering that India represents no less than 18 percent of humanity, the third largest economy in the world at purchasing-power parity, and other attributes signifying India’s global reach in economy, technology, and geopolitical affairs; (2) the adoption of procedures to override a veto by a super-majority (perhaps of three-quarters of the votes); (3) an expansion and rebalancing of total seats to ensure that all regions of the world are better represented relative to their population shares; and (4) the adoption of new tools for addressing threats to the peace, as outlined in Section 2.2.
 

Reflection & Reconsideration

The most fundamental principle for our new world system must be mutual respect among nations. The world faces profound and unprecedented challenges—environmental destruction, widespread political instability, the weaponization of cutting-edge technologies, and the dramatic widening of inequalities of wealth and power—that can only be addressed through peaceful cooperation among nations. Yet, despite the urgency of cooperation, we are drifting towards wider war.

The UN is very much a work in progress. It is the creation of a very different world, one that was dominated by the United States in the intermediate aftermath of World War II. At 79 years old, the UN is still an infant in the age-old challenge of good governance and international statecraft. In a world filled to the brim with ever more powerful weaponry, especially nuclear weaponry, solving the challenge of peaceful cooperation is the most vital challenge of all.

The Summit of the Future is therefore a key moment for reflection and reconsideration on how to govern our new multipolar world, at a time of unprecedented challenges facing humanity. The world’s challenges will certainly not be solved at the September conference, but the Summit of the Future can nevertheless mark a vital starting point for a new global governance in which all regions of the world contribute cooperatively to the global common good.