As the United Nations prepare for their annual General Assembly next week, many questions have been raised about the importance and effectiveness of the institution. While UNGA cannot adequately address the plethora of crises, adversarial rivalries, and persistent violent conflicts globally, it does stand a good chance of acting on three major crises adversely affecting nearly every country — climate change, human rights violations, and the pervasiveness of violence worldwide.
It can do so forcefully through specific U.N. bodies because political considerations may play a lesser role in those: the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the U.N. Human Rights, and the U.N. Security Council.
The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty adopted in 1992 that provides a framework for global cooperation on climate change and has near-universal membership. Its mission includes stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions and allowing ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change. Since its inception, two critical child treaties have been adopted: the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which set binding emission reduction targets, and the Paris Agreement in 2015, which set a global pact to limit temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
About the author
Alon Ben-Meir
Alon Ben-Meir, Ph.D., is a retired professor of international affairs at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. He has taught international negotiations and conflict resolution and has authored seven books related to the Middle East. He is currently working on a new book about human rights in conflict zones.
