By Ephraim Agbo
Behind the speeches, walkouts and diplomatic theatre, the 81st UN General Assembly is exposing a deeper crisis: a world that still needs multilateralism but is increasingly unwilling—or unable—to operate by its rules.
Every September, the United Nations becomes the stage on which the world attempts to convince itself that it still speaks a common diplomatic language. Presidents arrive. Prime ministers take the podium. Foreign ministers hold hurried bilateral meetings. Delegations negotiate behind closed doors. Cameras capture handshakes, solemn speeches and carefully choreographed moments of disagreement. But the 81st United Nations General Assembly, now underway in New York, feels less like a demonstration of global unity than an X-ray of a fractured international system.
The official theme of this year's General Debate is “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all.” The debate began on September 22 and is scheduled to continue through September 28, with about 130 heads of state and government expected to participate. The choice of words—restoring trust—is revealing.
Trust is precisely what the international system appears to be losing. Wars continue despite diplomatic appeals. The Security Council remains constrained by geopolitical rivalry. Gaza remains a devastating test of international law and humanitarian diplomacy. Ukraine remains a test of the principle of territorial sovereignty. Iran and the United States are locked in an increasingly dangerous confrontation. Africa continues to demand a greater voice in institutions created under a geopolitical order that no longer resembles the world of 1945.
And now there is artificial intelligence, rapidly becoming not merely a technological question but a question about who will control the next generation of economic, military and political power.
The United Nations is therefore confronting an uncomfortable paradox: the world needs the UN more precisely at the moment when the UN appears least capable of controlling the forces tearing the international system apart.
Guterres and the four tests of power
António Guterres, making what is expected to be his final opening address to the General Assembly as Secretary-General, did not present the crises before the world as separate problems. He described them as four interconnected “tests of power”: war and peace, inequality, climate change and artificial intelligence. That framing matters.
The central issue, in Guterres's formulation, is not simply whether the world can solve individual crises. It is whether humanity can determine how power itself is exercised. The international system is changing at several levels simultaneously. New states are becoming more influential. Private corporations and individuals possess unprecedented concentrations of wealth and technological power. Artificial intelligence is beginning to influence decisions that were once exclusively human.
The Secretary-General warned that the world's “cracks have become canyons” and called for renewed international cooperation rather than a descent into rival geopolitical blocs. His warning about AI was particularly striking.
Guterres called for international guardrails around artificial intelligence and argued that life-and-death decisions should never be surrendered to machines. He also called for stronger international oversight of AI risks and condemned the prospect of autonomous weapons operating without meaningful human control.
This connects directly to one of the most consequential questions now emerging from the technology debate: what happens when technological capability develops faster than political institutions can regulate it? That question is no longer theoretical.
AI is becoming part of the global competition for economic advantage, military superiority and strategic influence. The countries and corporations controlling computing power, data and advanced models could possess forms of influence that traditional diplomatic institutions were never designed to manage. The UN is therefore being forced to discuss a technology that may reshape the balance of power itself.
Gaza and the limits of international diplomacy
But if AI represents a challenge for the future, Gaza represents one of the present international system's most painful tests. Guterres again called for compliance with international legal obligations concerning Gaza and warned that settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank is threatening the possibility of a two-state solution.
The significance of Gaza at the UN goes beyond the immediate conflict. It touches the credibility of the entire rules-based international system. The UN Charter, international humanitarian law and international institutions are built around principles that are supposed to apply beyond nationality and military strength. Yet the continuing violence has produced a familiar question: what happens when international institutions can identify violations but cannot compel the most powerful actors involved to stop them?
That question has become increasingly uncomfortable for the UN. The organisation can debate resolutions. It can issue warnings. Its agencies can document humanitarian suffering. International courts can issue legal orders. But enforcement ultimately collides with political power. And that gap between what international law says and what states are actually prepared to enforce is one of the central contradictions exposed by this year's General Assembly.
Trump brings power politics into the room
Then came President Trump. His appearance at the General Assembly provided perhaps the clearest illustration of the tension between traditional multilateral diplomacy and the politics of national power. Trump used his address to defend the US approach to Iran, discuss American economic and technological strength and present his administration's foreign policy through the lens of American interests and power. He also spoke about artificial intelligence, using the term “super intelligence” in discussing the technology. But the most dramatic part of the confrontation came in relation to Iran.
Trump issued a severe warning toward Tehran, while Iran subsequently rejected the pressure and its delegation walked out during his address. The symbolism was difficult to miss.
The United Nations is designed around dialogue—even between adversaries. But the spectacle in New York demonstrated how quickly the diplomatic theatre can become an extension of geopolitical confrontation. The speeches are supposed to bring countries together around common rules. Instead, they sometimes reveal just how far apart those countries remain.
Ukraine and the problem of consistency
Ukraine continues to expose another major contradiction. Guterres again condemned Russia's full-scale invasion as a violation of the UN Charter and called for the protection of civilians and a just peace. The UN has also reiterated that the Charter's principles must be defended consistently. The principle at stake is straightforward: states should not be able to redraw international borders through force.
But the larger diplomatic problem is the perception—fair or otherwise—that international principles are not always applied with equal political force. That perception matters enormously in the Global South.
For many developing countries, the credibility of the international system depends not merely on whether rules exist but on whether powerful states are held to them consistently. This is why the language of “double standards” repeatedly appears in debates about international affairs.
The UN cannot easily demand universal respect for the rules while simultaneously struggling to demonstrate that geopolitical power does not determine which violations receive the greatest international response. That is one of the organisation's deepest legitimacy problems.
Africa's unfinished seat at the table
Then there is Africa. The continent has 54 UN member states and is central to many of the world's most important peace, security, development and humanitarian questions. Yet Africa still has no permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Guterres again described the absence of permanent African representation as unjust and indefensible. This is not merely an African grievance. It is a question about whether the institutional architecture of global governance still reflects contemporary geopolitical reality.
The Security Council was created after the Second World War, when the international distribution of power looked radically different. Today, emerging powers have demanded greater representation, while African countries have consistently argued that the continent cannot remain permanently excluded from the most powerful decision-making body in the international system.
The difficulty is that institutional reform is itself a question of power. Those with privileged positions must agree to redistribute some of that privilege. And historically, powerful institutions rarely reform themselves simply because reform is logically necessary.
Nigeria arrives with an old demand in a changing world
Nigeria is using UNGA 81 to reinforce its own argument for reform. Vice President Kashim Shettima is leading Nigeria's delegation on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Nigeria's stated priorities include reform of international institutions, sustainable development, peace and security, climate action and a more equitable global economic order. Nigeria is also pushing its longstanding demand for permanent African representation on the Security Council. But Nigeria's participation goes beyond diplomatic speeches. Shettima has also used the gathering to promote Africa's economic transformation, particularly around critical minerals.
At an Africa Minerals Strategy Group meeting in New York, he argued that African countries should move beyond exporting raw minerals and develop processing, manufacturing and value-added industries around the continent's resources. That is an important shift in the African development conversation.
For decades, Africa's enormous natural resources have often entered the global economy primarily as raw materials, while much of the higher-value processing occurs elsewhere. The question increasingly being asked is not simply whether Africa has resources. It is whether Africa can convert those resources into industrial capacity, jobs, technological development and geopolitical leverage. And that question is directly connected to the broader UN debate about inequality and power.
The UN's other crisis: money
Behind the wars and speeches lies another problem that receives less dramatic television coverage: money. Guterres highlighted the continuing inequality between countries, the debt pressures facing developing economies and the imbalance between global wealth and access to basic opportunities. He called for faster debt relief, stronger multilateral development banks and fairer access to international financial resources.
This matters because international politics is not conducted only through armies and diplomacy. It is also conducted through finance. A heavily indebted developing country has less room to invest in infrastructure, education, healthcare and industrialisation. A wealthy country has more options.
The result is an international system in which formal sovereignty may be equal while economic power remains profoundly unequal. That is another reason the phrase “restoring trust” matters. Countries do not build trust merely because diplomats shake hands. They build it when institutions are perceived to work.
And then there is climate change
Climate change has become another demonstration of the unequal distribution of power and vulnerability. The countries that contributed relatively little to historical emissions are often among those facing severe consequences, while the economic benefits of decades of fossil-fuel-driven growth have been distributed very unevenly. Guterres described climate change as a profound intergenerational power imbalance and called for greater adaptation financing for developing countries.
Again, the problem is not a lack of speeches. The problem is implementation. The world has repeatedly demonstrated that it can agree on ambitious language. The harder question is whether states will accept the economic costs and political compromises required to turn that language into action.
The General Assembly's uncomfortable truth
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of UNGA 81 is that virtually everybody agrees that the international system is in trouble. The disagreement is over what should replace it—or how it should be repaired.
The United States emphasises its national interests and strategic power. Russia remains locked in confrontation with the West over Ukraine. Iran rejects American pressure. European states seek to defend the existing international order while confronting its limitations. African countries demand greater representation. Developing countries demand changes to global finance. And the UN itself is asking states to cooperate at precisely the moment when geopolitical competition is encouraging them to do the opposite. This is why the General Assembly matters even when it appears incapable of solving the problems discussed inside its chamber.
The UNGA is not a world government. It cannot simply order powerful countries to behave differently. But it remains one of the few places where almost the entire international community can appear in the same room and publicly articulate competing visions of the world. Its weakness is therefore also a reflection of the world's weakness.
The real question is not whether the UN is failing
It is tempting to ask whether the United Nations is succeeding or failing. That question is too simple. The more important question is whether the institution created in 1945 can adapt to a world whose distribution of power has changed dramatically.
The UN was created after the devastation of two world wars, when the overriding fear was that another global conflict could destroy civilisation. Today, the threats are more complicated. There are conventional wars, nuclear weapons, cyber conflict, climate change, pandemics, economic inequality, autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence.
Power is no longer concentrated exclusively in governments. Technology companies can possess resources and influence comparable to those of states. Algorithms can shape information environments. Artificial intelligence could alter military and economic capabilities. Private actors increasingly influence areas once controlled almost entirely by governments. The institution therefore faces a historic question. Can a system designed for the twentieth century govern the twenty-first century?
The world still needs the UN—but the UN needs the world to change
The answer may ultimately depend less on the speeches delivered in New York than on what governments do after they leave. The cameras will disappear. The motorcades will leave Manhattan. Delegations will return home. The wars will remain. The economic inequalities will remain. The AI race will continue. Africa will still be demanding a greater voice. And the Security Council will still confront the structural limitations built into its design. That is the paradox of UNGA 81.
The world has not lost its need for the United Nations. If anything, the multiplication of global crises has made international cooperation more necessary. What has become increasingly difficult is getting powerful states to accept that cooperation sometimes requires restraint. The central battle of the twenty-first century may therefore not be between the United Nations and its critics. It may be between the idea of shared rules and the enduring reality of unequal power.
UNGA 81 has brought that contradiction into full view. The world came to New York to discuss how to restore trust. But beneath the speeches, the walkouts, the handshakes and the diplomatic language lies a much harder question: Can humanity build a system in which power is strong enough to protect national interests—but restrained enough to preserve a world in which international rules still mean something?
For now, the United Nations remains the world's most visible forum for asking that question. Whether it remains capable of answering it is the real story of UNGA 81.
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