One of the dominant early stories at the UN High-level Week is that the leaders from four of the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council (UNSC) will not attend UNGA this year. Of the P5 leaders, only President Biden will appear.
To be fair, it isn’t unusual for the leaders of major powers to skip UNGA. Presidents Putin and Xi rarely attend in person and Indian Prime Minister Modi has skipped as many UNGAs as he’s attended.
But the absence of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron this week – both leaders that repeatedly state their desire to engage constructively with the world and particularly with countries in the ‘Global South’ – has re-energised calls to make the membership of the UNSC more inclusive.
From The Shadows Emerges Knowledge