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“Every galactic crisis needs an assembly” is the argument my colleague Mariana Samayoa Martinez makes in her latest piece looking at depictions of interplanetary cooperation in science fiction, and what they might mean for our universe.
Even when fiction sends the assembly into the galaxy, it turns out, earth-bound problems follow it there.
This summer I read a delightful collection of short stories by Kanishk Tharoor, an editor at Foreign Affairs and son of famed UN official and Kofi Annan confidant Shashi Tharoor. One piece imagines the United Nations relocating into an orbiting space hotel after Earth becomes ungovernable.
A vantage point from which diplomats lament, “Nothing revolves around us anymore.”
Bring it back to Earth, and the mood isn’t so different as the Secretary-General selection process rolls on and the 81st session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), which kicked-off on September 8 hits its stride.
The SG Roundup
In the race to be Secretary-General, the doldrums continue as everyone awaits the next straw poll, expected on September 18. But the race won’t really pick up until straw poll #4 which may be on September 29, when color-coded ballots are expected to come into play.
To wake things up, we’ll be taping a live bonus episode of our podcast, World’s Toughest Job, on September 22, in partnership with Foreign Policy. More on that soon.
New Beginning(s)
September isn’t just back-to-school season for much of the world; it’s also when the UN General Assembly begins its new term. A new President takes the gavel and starts setting the agenda for the year ahead.
At the helm this time is Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman, who took office last Tuesday. He knows the job, having served as a personal aide to the last Bangladeshi President of the General Assembly, Humayun Rashid Choudhury, back in 1986. (NB: the role of the PGA rotates among regional groups on an annual basis).
The new PGA inherits the baton from Annalena Baerbock, former German Foreign Minister, who concluded her term on a note in defense of multilateralism after a particularly bruising year for the UN. Going forward, there is no shortage of challenges to address, processes to steward, and ideas to advance for the new PGA to leave his own mark.
The Sense Maker
Five Minutes with Thibault Camelli
I sat down with Thibault Camelli, Senior Program Officer at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation and co-author of a sharp report on the power and the limits of the PGA office.
Thibault is one of the most prolific researchers of the future of multilateralism, my personal UN-GPT for budget arcana or procedure, and (not incidentally) a devoted fan of the scifi mini-series Andor, which plays a starring role in Mariana’s article.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
[Re]Group: Does the person holding the PGA office change the tone and substance of the session?
Thibault Camelli: Formally, not much. The office’s powers are fixed regardless of who sits in the chair.
But the how of getting there matters more than people assume. A PGA elected by a contested vote starts the session having to win over a membership that wasn’t unanimously behind them. In contrast, one who arrives by acclamation inherits a different kind of legitimacy and tends to govern accordingly.
Beyond that, there’s something less measurable: the office’s real influence has always outrun its institutional powers. How much of that ‘untapped potential’ gets used varies enormously from one presidency to the next, depending as much on personality, procedural fluency, and appetite for the job, as on the office itself.
[Re]Group: Where can this PGA make a difference over the course of the 81st session?
Thibault Camelli: I’d point to a few buckets. First: on AI. The PGA will make important co-facilitator appointments for the second global dialogue on AI governance which will take place in New York in May of 2027.
Second: the SDG Summit in September 2027, for which they will oversee most of the preparations and which is a final marquee moment as the deadline for the 2030 Agenda approaches.
Third: the biennial General Assembly revitalization process. This includes a rare standing invitation for the PGA to weigh in on strengthening the office itself.
Fourth: the Secretary-General selection process. Not the choice of Secretary-General, which sits with the UN Security Council (see the [Re]Group Cheat Sheet for 101 on the process), but building the coalition of Member States that will implement and support whoever emerges.
[Re]Group: And what about the limitations of the office?
Thibault Camelli: They are considerable, and mostly political rather than technical.
The rules define the PGA as the face of the General Assembly and its Member States, and not an independent actor with a mandate of their own. Member States remain divided on strengthening the office and have resisted even modest expansions, including a longer, two-year term.
In practice, no PGA can take up a genuinely sensitive issue without first consulting the membership. There’s also a structural undertow that gets less attention than it deserves: the influence of the department that runs the Assembly’s day-to-day machinery.
[Re]Group: Could you explain how the roles of the PGA and Secretary-General differ, and how they complement each other?
Thibault Camelli: The first PGA election, back in 1946, was contested between a Belgian candidate and a Norwegian one. The Belgian, Paul-Henri Spaak, won the presidency, the Norwegian who lost that race, Trygve Lie, went on to become the first Secretary-General.
Rather than a consolation prize, the PGA was the more prominent role. A kind of paper president of the world — first among the Member States — while the SG was seen as more of an executive administrator.
It was really the Cold War that hollowed the office of the PGA out, as the General Assembly relinquished much of its influence, and the SG’s role grew in its place.
The High-level Week
All eyes will now be on UNGA, with High-level Week running September 18–28 and the General Debate spanning September 22–26 and 28. At the Debate, world leaders will come to New York to make their big speeches (see provisional list of speakers).
Check out these resources for more on UNGA:
Use the UN Foundation’s UNGA Hub to navigate High-level Week — it’s a chaotic time and only the prepared survive.
Minderoo Foundation, the Australian philanthropy, has laid out five priorities for UNGA.
The World Economic Forum has published its own explainer and expectations.
And read Giuliano da Empoli’s The Hour of the Predator for his description of world leaders and their entourages at UNGA, crammed into elevators and barging past each other down corridors. “You wait or you run; there is no in-between. This is the rhythm of the General Assembly, and of politics in general.”
[Re]Group x Global Dispatches
Launching ahead of UNGA, we're teaming up with Mark Leon Goldberg for a new series — featuring sharp analysis, live conversations, and special coverage. Stay tuned!
From the Archive
We at [Re]Group have discussed many of the topics on the UNGA 81 agenda. In preparation for High-level Week, you may be interested in revisiting some of those pieces.
