Remarks by the President of the General Assembly
Mr. Philemon Yang
World Leaders Forum
Seton Hall University,
New Jersey, 11:00 am, 16 April, 2025
Professor Courtney Smith, Dean of the Seton Hall University School of Diplomacy and International Relations,
Distinguished Faculty,
Dear Students,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am honoured to join you today at the World Leaders Forum.
You are as the future diplomats, leaders, and thinkers who will shape our world.
As President of the General Assembly, I am aware of the United Nations’ duty to the international community.
And you are part of that community.
This duty is set out in the opening of the Charter of the United Nations.
The principal responsibilities, the objectives of the Charter are to:
- To bring peace and security to the world
- To promote sustainable development,
- To promote human rights.
And to that, you can add humanitarian law.
It is a promise – a promise of the UN Charter – that cannot be kept by words alone. It requires a lot of things to be done.
It demands daily action to build a world grounded in peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development.
These three pillars of the United Nations –Peace and Security, Sustainable Development, and Human Rights – constitute the main objectives of the United Nations.
The pillars are supported by distinct organs of the United Nations system:
- The Security Council leads on peace and security.
- The Human Rights Council promotes rights and freedoms; and
- the Economic and Social Council advances development.
No single organ can bear the weight of that responsibility alone.
Upholding these pillars is a collective duty.
It is not only for one person but for all the countries of the world.
That duty is shared across the United Nations system and championed by the General Assembly.
And the United Nations General Assembly is the most representative deliberative body of the Organisation -I could even say of the whole world.
Because there is no other assembly in the world where 193 Member States are represented – that is almost 200.
Over the past 80 years – that is beginning in 1945 – this collective effort has helped to prevent conflict and improve the human condition.
And I must warn you, we are not in heaven, but we are not in hell either.
The UN has handled issues concerning health, poverty, education, and rights. Our organization has invested a lot in order to face the common challenges of the modern world. And when we talk about common challenges of the modern world there is a whole list of them – is it Gaza, is it Ukraine, is it Sudan.
The list can be very long.
And sometimes we are blocked by looking at the places where people are fighting. You can also imagine what the UN has been doing for children through UNICEF. For people who are sick in hospitals, through the World Health Organization.
So the United Nations is a very important organization which deals with a long list of issues all over the world.
And the United Nations has been seeking to bring progress to a world which is not always easy to handle.
And one of the things we are proud of is that this is the first time that humanity has been able to create an organization which is functioning fairly well.
It is not perfect. There is no perfect organizations – for those of you us who create the organization, including you, are imperfect – and imperfect people create imperfect organizations.
So the progress we are trying to bring to the world is difficult but there are many aspects which are well run.
Historically the UN was put in place in 1945.
Before that, there was the League of Nations which unfortunately did not succeed.
It was put in place in 1919 at the end of World War I.
The US Congress wouldn’t allow President Woodrow Wilson to ratify to get into the League of Nations.
Before then, after the fall of Napoleon, the European Countries came together in the Congress of Vienna and put in place the Concert of Europe.
It was not like the UN. It did not involve the whole world. It only involved the countries of Europe.
And they were able to manage and avoid very dangerous wars from 1815 to 1914 when the First World War started.
So our organization is proud of the fact that we’ve been around for 80 years.
And we have essential partners we need to work with so we can succeed.
And among those essential partners are academic institutions like Seton Hall University.
Your institution is a wonderful institution.
And your institution contributes to what the United Nations is and will be in future.
How?
By simply fostering knowledge,
By sharpening critical thinking,
By taking young people like you and making out of you diplomats and leaders. You are already doing a lot for the whole world, for the international community.
And because of this we are looking forward to a commitment. We prepare you for what we commonly call multilateralism, or international cooperation.
Seton Hall, in particular, has made a direct contribution to the work of the United Nations:
Your collaboration with the Council of Presidents of the General Assembly to develop a handbook for future Presidents is wonderful. The handbook stands out as a model of what an academic institution working in partnership with the United Nations can do.
My Dear Friends,
We meet in turbulent times. That is perhaps an understatement.
There are conflicts and tensions in different parts of the world.
The climate crisis is worsening, and our response remains far too weak.
Conflicts rage across the Middle East, to Sudan, to Ukraine.
And multilateral diplomacy is under increasing strain.
The nations of the world and international organizations must reflect and think properly.
We must uphold the principles of the United Nations Charter and respect international law
We must respect and promote human rights and human dignity.
We must push forward everything we can do to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
We must harness the promise of technology, especially artificial intelligence, and close the digital divide.
And we must stop ourselves from returning to the horrors of the early twentieth century, by re-embracing diplomacy and dialogue.
When I talk of the early twentieth century, I refer to the First World War which was terrible, and the Second World War which was even more terrible.
And to all this we seek solutions through diplomacy and dialogue.
Dialogue is so important that we ought not to minimize it.
Some great thinkers have said that all the great wars end with diplomacy and dialogue, going back centuries.
You can go back to the 30 year war in Europe war from 1618-1648, ending with the treaty of Westphalia.
Even in that one Negotiations went on in Germany for a very long time. It was unlike today, when you can communicate instantly and people can speak to people in the international space station. Before, it was not that easy.
You – the world’s 1.2 billion young people –are the torchbearers of transformation.
That is a reality recognized in the Pact for the Future, adopted by world leaders in September 2024 – by heads of state and government in New York, not far from you.
The Pact offers a shared vision for a multilateral system that is more just, more inclusive, and more effective.
And we are very optimistic that this Pact will help deliver across all of the United Nations’ pillars of work.
The Pact for the Future presents a multilateral system that upholds peace, respects human dignity, and drives transformative action for the achievement of the world.
The two annexes to the Pact Annexes lay out a number of commitments:
- The Global Digital Compact aims to close digital divides, govern technology responsibly, and share its benefits fairly.
- The Declaration on Future Generations seeks to bring long-term thinking into the United Nations’ work, and ensure we act with tomorrow in mind. We must work with young people in order to shape the world that is to come
All Member States must be key players in the implementation of the Pact for the Future.
And rest assured, I am determined to help translate the Pact’s vision into real outcomes for the world’s 8 billion people.
To this end, just weeks ago I launched the first of three informal interactive dialogues to support Member States in advancing implementation of the Pact for the Future.
Indeed, the responsibility is ours to prove that multilateralism or international cooperation is more than a slogan. International cooperation is crucial. Member States can both compete and cooperate at the same time.
The greatest power we have now is cooperation.
We must lead by example, demonstrating that global problems need global solutions.
And we must collectively embark on the journey of global transformation.
No country, however powerful, however rich, can solve alone the great challenges that confront us.
Our challenges require that all countries, large and small, work together
Only by bringing together diverse voices can we meet our common goals. And the General Assembly is where everybody can come and express themselves. It is the parliament of humanity.
And by the way, a statesman I respect very much said that the United Nations was created so that instead of taking our guns and killing each other we can speak. We can speak politely and exchange our ideas.
We are now preparing to mark the 80th anniversary of the United Nations Charter in June 26 of this year.
We must use this symbolic milestone to reaffirm the Organisation’s relevance.
If the United Nations did not exist, we would be forced to create one. Why?
The challenges the world are facing are so complex that we need an organization that can come together and deal with the different issues.
We should inject fresh momentum into multilateralism.
My Office is organising two high-level meetings to highlight the central importance of the United Nations to our multilateral system.
The first, on 26 June 2025, will commemorate the signing of the Charter in San Francisco.
The celebration will enable us to reflect on and imagine new ways of working for the international community.
It will offer Member States a chance to rekindle the spirit of 1945. The spirit of San Francisco led the nations of the world to create the United Nations.
The second ceremony, in September 2025, during High-Level Week will highlight the achievements of the multilateral system over the past 80 years.
That ceremony will emphasize all that is possible when we work together. Member States, United Nations agencies, and civil society can all work together hand-in-hand.
Indeed, the Pact for the Future and the 80th anniversary complement each other. The objective of the Pact is to renew multilateralism—grounded in the enduring relevance of the United Nations and its Charter, which is the constitution of the United Nations.
The Organization’s 80th anniversary offers a timely opportunity to recommit to collective action and drive meaningful reform.
The Pact, in turn, provides a clear blueprint for that transformation.
The Pact for the Future translates shared principles into practical priorities for a more inclusive, effective, and accountable international system.
My Dear Friends,
As we reflect on the enduring power of multilateralism, we must admit that:
The institutions we have must evolve and must adapt themselves to our present realities.
Our world is not the world we knew in 1945.
The present Security Council often gets deadlocked in times of crisis.
We need a UN security Council that is adapted to the complexities of the present world.
Consider that when the United Nations was established, there were only 51 Member States. Today, there are 193.
As such a Security Council where Latin America, Africa and much of Asia lack permanent seats can hardly claim to speak for today’s world.
We must also ask: can the developing world truly develop while trapped in cycles of unsustainable debt?
There are countries which merely get by because the loans they get from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund become a burden rather than an instrument of progress.
We need a new international debt architecture.
Does the current international financial architecture empower countries to lift themselves out of poverty—or entrench inequality? I will say no.
There will be a conference in Spain this year, the objective being to re-examine the international financial architecture, so that the developing countries that go to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or to the European Investment Bank will have a greater voice and opportunity to work with those who have the money.
There is a need for a new International Financial architecture.
And finally, we must consider how to revitalize the work of the General Assembly itself – the General Assembly I chair.
That will enable the General Assembly to deliver more effectively on its mandate and restore trust in global governance.
As President of the General Assembly, I ask myself each day: what can I do—while I hold this office—to advance progress?
This role gives me the chance to convene, to spotlight, and to open dialogue on the most urgent issues of our time.
That is why I launched the Palaver Tree Dialogues—informal morning conversations with Permanent Representatives, Ambassadors of Member States at the United Nations.
The Palaver Tree Dialogue is another name for what other Presidents before me called morning dialogue.
It is just an opportunity where you can speak without anybody taking notes.
And you can discuss like in an African village where people sit under a tree and speak until they can find consensus.
At the UN we also seek consensus because consensus is marvelous. You know why? Because when you find a solution by consensus there is no election, no voting, and everyone can be friends.
These off-the-record meetings allow for honest, candid exchanges.
That openness is essential for international cooperation.
I also take seriously my designation as an International Gender Champion.
Gender issues are important to me. Because the world in which we live in have to deal with gender issues.
Human society is like a bird; one wing is female, the other is male. We cannot fly with only one wing.
Gender equality—especially economic empowerment of women and girls—is central to this session’s goals.
And it must be high on our agenda.
Because no global challenge can be solved while women and girls are held back in many parts of the world. We must include them in everything we do.
Alongside these priorities are a set of initiatives tied to the United Nations’ three pillars—peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development.
Each of these is intended to spotlight and address specific issues that require international attention.
On peace and security, I convened a joint meeting with the President of the Economic and Social Council to address the threat of small arms and light weapons, not only to peace but also to development.
In June, this year, we will hold a high-level debate on the future of peacekeeping in Africa.
On human rights, we began the year with a dialogue on the importance of respecting and upholding international humanitarian law to protect human dignity during armed conflict.
In May, we will follow up with a session on eliminating child labour in all its forms, including forced recruitment and use of children in armed conflict.
On sustainable development, we held a hearing in February with the Inter-Parliamentary Union on scaling up action and financing the Sustainable Development Goals.
In July, we will convene a dialogue on advancing the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa, with a focus on digitalization and entrepreneurship.
Beyond these initiatives, I remain committed to renewing the spirit and strength of multilateralism. We need international cooperation more than ever before.
But that vision cannot come from institutions alone. It depends on you.
You are not just observers of global affairs. You are contributors, and in many cases, practitioners.
Armed with your critical thinking and ambition to serve, you bring the energy that this world system urgently needs.
This session of the General Assembly has opened space to confront the world’s hardest challenges.
Your task is to keep that space open—and fill it with ideas that are bold, practical, and inclusive.
Thank you.
Media Contacts
Sharon Birch, Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly, Tel: +1 212 963 0564, M: +1 646 342 5873, Email: birchs@un.org
Dr. Mariam Shaikh, Adviser/ Social and Digital Media/Media Relations, M: +1 917 361 4990, Email: mariam.shaikh@un.org
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