Why the UN General Assembly still matters

More than eight decades on, the UN General Assembly remains the place where the UN’s 193 Member States come together to debate the defining challenges of the day, from war and peace – to development, climate change and human rights.Richard Gowan, Director of UN and Multilateral Diplomacy at the International Crisis Group in New York, has spent years studying the organization – its highs and lows. Ahead of the General Assembly’s high-level week, he sat down with UN News to discuss why the Assembly remains a vital stage for international diplomacy – and why, despite a changing world rife with division, its role still matters.UN News: Take us back to 1945, when the UN was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. What did its founders hope the General Assembly would become? Richard Gowan: I think the founders of the UN assumed that the Security Council would be the centre of most decision making in 1945. But after the UN started working, the big powers in the Security Council became divided very quickly, and suddenly a lot of political discussions moved to the General Assembly. If you go back to the 1940s and early 1950s, it was the General Assembly that was really driving a l...