World leaders will gather in New York next week for the high-level General Debate of the UN General Assembly's 81st session, a gathering that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will open for the final time before his mandate ends.
The General Assembly's high-level week runs from Sept. 22 to 28, following the session's formal opening on Sept. 8. Bangladeshi diplomat Khalilur Rahman is presiding over the 81st session, held under the theme "Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All."
As has been tradition since 1955, Brazil will deliver the first address after the opening speakers, followed by the host nation, the United States. The lineup underscores a week billed as a moment of renewal for the organization even as it confronts one of the most volatile stretches in its history, with active wars, a paralyzed Security Council and a leadership transition all converging on the same seven days.
At his final press conference ahead of the high-level week, Guterres said the gathering should be used to create room for leaders facing active crises to meet face to face.
Asked what the UN should deliver during the week to restore trust in the institution, he pointed to precedent.
"I would remind you that last year, there was a very important meeting of the United States with a number of Muslim countries that led to the peace plan for Gaza," he said, adding he would work to create opportunities for similar encounters during the week.
The debate opens against the backdrop of active warfare rather than diplomatic calm. In Gaza, a ceasefire that took hold on Oct. 10, 2025 under a US-backed plan has held only unevenly, with repeated Israeli violations blamed for killing at least 1,318 Palestinians and injuring more than 4,300 since.
In Ukraine, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in early September that produced no breakthrough. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said afterward that the war would continue, while the Kremlin has left the door open to a resumption of trilateral talks with Washington without committing to a date or venue.
The US-Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February continued in fits and starts through the summer, flaring again in early September when the United States struck Iranian targets and Tehran retaliated against US bases in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, further straining the Strait of Hormuz shipping route.
The dispute over Iran has also frozen the Security Council's own machinery, with members divided over whether sanctions reimposed under the "snapback" mechanism in September 2025 are legally in effect, a disagreement that has blocked agreement on basic council business.
Leaders are also expected to address the Cyprus issue, the conflict and worsening humanitarian crisis in Sudan, Myanmar's political and humanitarian crisis, and the security crisis in Haiti, alongside the wars in Gaza, Iran and Ukraine, rounding out an agenda dominated by conflicts with no clear resolution in sight.
Away from the conflicts, the week is busy with thematic meetings. An "SDG Moment" on Sept. 18 aims to reenergize the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. A high-level meeting on climate action and the "just transition," convened by Guterres, opens on Sept. 23, more than a decade after the Paris Agreement and at what organizers describe as a point where overshoot of its temperature targets is now considered inevitable.
The same day marks the 40th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, while Sept. 24 brings a meeting on the existential threat that low-lying and island states face from sea-level rise. A high-level meeting on pandemic prevention and preparedness follows on Sept. 25, and the week closes on Sept. 28 with commemorations of the 25th anniversary of the Durban Declaration against racism, alongside a push to advance a global framework for artificial intelligence governance.
In his opening remarks, Guterres said artificial intelligence would be a major topic in his discussions with world leaders and that the UN would keep exploring practical approaches in the days ahead, calling for "a shared understanding of how to advance the safe, secure and responsible development of AI" alongside ways to identify when powerful systems need stronger safeguards.
The paralysis over Gaza, Ukraine and Iran has fed louder calls to overhaul the Security Council so it better reflects today's balance of power, a demand renewed at nearly every recent session but no closer to resolution.
Asked why leaders would heed his renewed call to respect international law and the UN Charter when such appeals have gone unheeded before, and whether enforcement mechanisms for international law and war crimes are decaying, Guterres, in his final news conference, pointed to the geopolitical divide within the Security Council itself.
He called Security Council reform "an absolute priority," saying it was "unacceptable to have a Security Council with a composition that reflects the world of many decades ago instead of reflecting today's world."
Guterres said that paralysis, combined with a poor example set by major powers, has left countries around the world feeling "entitled to do whatever they want" in the knowledge that they can act "with impunity" while the Security Council remains unable to function.
Washington, for its part, has signaled that it will use the week to press a narrower vision, describing its goal as bringing the UN "back to basics" by focusing the organization on international peace and security, respect for state sovereignty and measurable results rather than broader institution-building.
This year's General Debate is expected to serve less as a forum for consensus than as a barometer of just how divided the UN's membership has become 81 years after its founding, and how far the institution's rhetoric of "restoring trust" is from the reality on the ground.
This year's session also carries the added weight of the race to succeed Guterres, whose term ends on Dec. 31. The incoming secretary-general is expected to take office on Jan. 1, 2027, and diplomatic contacts on the sidelines of the General Debate are expected to weigh on that selection process as candidates' positioning runs alongside the formal debate sessions.
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