It’s that time of year! The 81st United Nations General Assembly is officially underway. This UNGA I’m partnering with the United Nations Foundation’s [Re]Group Substack to bring you livestreams and special coverage. More on that below!

Your Cheat Sheet

The main events of UNGA begin next Tuesday, the 22nd, with the start of the General Debate. This is the parade of presidents and prime ministers who address the world from the General Assembly dais.

At about 9 a.m. that morning, we’ll hear the final UNGA speech from UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He’s usually quite blunt in these speeches, and I expect his valedictory address will be especially sharp about the sordid state of multilateralism today—and the dire consequences of a world that can’t get cooperation right.

We’ll also hear from the new President of the General Assembly, Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh.

Then comes the main event. As is tradition, the President of Brazil speaks first, followed by the President of the United States.

Here’s the latest speakers list. (NB: “HS” stands for Head of State. “HG” stands for Head of Government.)

On the most recent episode of To Save Us From Hell, Anjali Dayal and I preview some of these speeches we are most anticipating. We dissect the speakers list and share some of the geopolitical drama we expect to unfold at UNGA. Do check out that episode for deeper analysis.

As always, the presence of so many leaders in the same place at the same time means that the UN is also convening a number of High-Level Meetings on specific topics. Two, in particular, that I’ll be following are:

• High-Level Meeting to Address the Existential Threats Posed by Sea-Level Rise: September 24, 2026

• High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response: September 25, 2026

(And on this latter meeting, don’t miss my conversation with Helen Clark last month about the significance of this gathering on pandemics, what it can accomplish, and what is at stake.)

My UNGA Plans

I’ll be hanging around the UN and attending various events around New York from Monday through Thursday.

Monday evening the 21st, I’ll be attending the annual Goalkeepers event hosted by the Gates Foundation (which is a supporter of Global Dispatches.) Goalkeepers is a major annual event focused on accelerating progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. On September 15, the Gates Foundation released its annual Goalkeepers report, which focused on leveraging artificial intelligence in support of sustainable development and announced a $1 billion pledge toward that goal. I suspect this will be a major focus of this year’s event.

Tuesday, September 22, is the big day of UNGA. For most of the morning and into the afternoon, I’ll be at Al Jazeera English’s pop-up studio at the UN, offering live analysis of what I’m seeing and hearing. I always love doing live TV, and this is certainly an interesting time. You can tune in wherever you watch Al Jazeera.

A UNGA 81 Partnership with [Re]Group

As mentioned above, Global Dispatches is partnering with the UN Foundation’s [Re]Group Playbook to offer live updates and analysis throughout UNGA. And also commentary throughout the year.

This will kick off on Thursday, September 17, with a Substack Live featuring Elizabeth Cousens, President and CEO of the UN Foundation. This conversation will offer a useful preview of the key stories that will drive the agenda at UNGA this year. It will be free for everyone, though be sure to subscribe to Global Dispatches (and [Re]Group!) to get notified when we go live.

On Tuesday afternoon the 22nd, we’ll go live again, this time with my To Save Us From Hell co-host Anjali Dayal and another guest. We’ll respond to some of the key speeches delivered thus far, including President Trump’s, and discuss what we are seeing and hearing around UNGA. This Tuesday-of-UNGA livestream has become something of a tradition, and I’m really looking forward to it.

My partnership with [Re]Group also includes some written content. At the end of this week, look out for an essay from me about the current race for UN Secretary-General. I’m aiming to publish that piece shortly after the results of the latest straw poll are released on Friday morning. Please be sure to subscribe to [Re]Group to get that essay as soon as it’s available.

All my content next week will be free. No Paywalls. But if you want to support my work — and the copious amounts of caffeine I’ll consume next week — please get a paid subscription at any level. Your support helps me more than you might know. At the end of the month, I’ll reach out to all my paid subscribers and send you a Global Dispatches sticker in the mail if you’d like.

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Finally: if you are around UNGA— say hi! If there’s an event you think I should attend, people you think I should meet, or if there’s anything else on your mind, please send me an email.

Stay hydrated, my friends!

So what happens when deportees arrive in a country where gangs control large swaths of territory and the state has lost its grip on basic security?

Diego Da Rin of the International Crisis Group joins me to explain what we know about these deportation flights, where people are being sent, and what happens to them after they land. From there, we turn to the much bigger picture: gangs are expanding their control, violence is spreading, and a new UN-backed Gang Suppression Force of 5,500 international troops is beginning to deploy. And this is all happening ahead of elections scheduled for the end of the year that may increase the levels of violence to even worse levels.

One of the key questions we discuss is whether this latest international intervention can actually change the trajectory of Haiti’s crisis — or whether the gangs will continue to gain ground.

Our conversation is freely available directly in Substack, with audio versions available in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

If you appreciate this kind of content, please support my work with a paid subscription at any level!

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We are just two weeks away from the largest diplomatic gathering of the year, as hundreds of presidents and prime ministers descend on the United Nations for the opening of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.

In this special episode, Anjali and I preview the speeches we are most anticipating, discuss some notable attendees—and a few key snubs—and lay out why this particular UNGA matters at this particular moment in global politics.

We discuss:

• The key speeches we will be following

• The curious case of Canada’s Carney’s conspicuous absence

• How the Iran War will shape the diplomatic debate

• What chaos might Donald Trump bring

And much, much more!

The full episode is available immediately below the fold, exclusively to our paying subscribers. You can also use this link to access the episode directly in Substack or on your preferred podcast listening apps.

We think this UNGA preview will be helpful to anyone who wants to understand what’s going to happen at the UN this month.

We’re running our annual September discount! Use the links below to access this episode and all our content during UNGA and beyond!

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Today’s episode is dedicated to all things UNGA81! We are just two weeks away from the largest diplomatic gathering of the year, as hundreds of presidents and prime ministers descend on the United Nations for the opening of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.

In this special episode, Anjali and Mark preview the speeches they are most anticipating, discuss some notable attendees—and a few key snubs—and lay out why this particular UNGA matters at this particular moment in global politics.

The full episode is available exclusively to our paying subscribers. We’re running our annual September discount, using the links above.

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It’s that time of year again! For the 20th time in 21 years,* I’ve secured my press pass and will be headed to the United Nations for the annual opening of the UN General Assembly, better known in diplomatic circles simply as “UNGA.”

This is always the single largest diplomatic gathering of the year. Hundreds of presidents and prime ministers come to New York, along with their sizable entourages, to deliver speeches from the General Assembly dais and attend any number of bilateral meetings, side events, receptions, and the like. It can be a logistical nightmare for participants and press alike, but honestly, I love it. It’s the one time of year when people outside the UN bubble really pay attention to the United Nations, which gives me the opportunity to explain why this week matters.

I’ll have plenty of coverage of UNGA in the coming weeks. But for now, I wanted to give my paying subscribers a sneak preview of the stories I’ll be following, as well as the key meetings, events, and speeches I think will drive the agenda at UNGA this year.

So, for paying subscribers, here are four storylines I’ll be following in UNGA 2026

I’m running some deep discounts during the month of September!

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*I missed 2015, which was a big one — the year the SDGs were adopted. But not worth missing the birth of my son!

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Over the last several weeks, the Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government have been clashing at a pace and with a fury not seen since a 2022 ceasefire brought a halt to a devastating eight-year civil war. The war in Iran has changed the dynamics of the region in ways that have left Yemen poised to become the next place where the conflict spreads.

My guest today, Alexandra Stark, is a political scientist at RAND who studies the region. She is the author of the book The Yemen Model and recently wrote a New York Times op-ed about the prospect of Yemen becoming a new front in a widening Middle East conflict.

We kick off by discussing recent events on the ground in Yemen, their connection to the U.S.-Iran war, and the mechanisms through which Yemen could once again become engulfed in a devastating civil war — one fueled by Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.

Our conversation is freely available to all. But please take a moment to support my work to bring you informed commentary and analysis on pressing global issues.

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In this episode of To Save Us From Hell, Anjali Dayal and I dissect the results of the latest Security Council straw poll, which tested the viability of the eight candidates seeking to succeed António Guterres when his term expires at the end of the year. We discuss who’s up, who’s down, and what comes next in the race to lead the United Nations.

We also discuss news that Xi Jinping is apparently skipping UNGA, despite already being in the United States for a scheduled meeting with Donald Trump in Washington! Plus, there’s some welcome news on the UN funding crisis, and António Guterres says the UN has a plan in place to help open the Strait of Hormuz.

The full episode is available immediately below the fold for our paying subscribers. We hope you’ll support the only independent podcast covering all things United Nations with a paid subscription. Here are some options:

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The United Nations is in the midst of selecting its next Secretary-General — and the race to succeed António Guterres just got more interesting. Last week, the Security Council held a straw poll to test the viability of the eight women and men vying to become Secretary-General in January. The results: we have a new frontrunner, though her apparent lead is narrow. Meanwhile, some candidates once considered frontrunners now look like long shots.

On this episode of our sister podcast, To Save Us From Hell, Mark Leon Goldberg and Anjali Dayal dissect the results of the straw poll and discuss the latest developments in the Secretary-General race

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However, the U.S.-Iran war has thrust Oman into an uncomfortable position — transforming it from a country that hosts peace talks into one caught up in a conflict it sought to help avoid. Oman’s geographic position on the opposite side of Hormuz from Iran has made it a player in this conflict, whether it wants to be one or not.

Case in point: On Tuesday, Oman and Iran jointly announced the outline of a plan to manage shipping traffic through the Strait — one that may include “fees” for ships passing through. Hours after Oman and Iran announced this new memorandum for managing the Strait of Hormuz, I caught up with Tyler Parker, a professor at Mercer University who specializes in the foreign policies of the Gulf countries and has written extensively about Oman’s foreign policy. He explains what we know about the agreement between Iran and Oman, why Oman is suddenly in Trump’s crosshairs — and whether Oman can show both sides the off-ramp that is so desperately needed in this conflict. You will learn a lot about a country that is suddenly, and uncomfortably, thrust into a spotlight it would rather have avoided.

The episode is freely available, but please support Global Dispatches with your paid subscription.

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For the poll, each of the 15 members of the Security Council voted secretly in a ballot in which they indicated whether they “encourage,” “discourage,” or have “no opinion” of a particular candidate. Importantly, the ballots do not distinguish between whether a vote comes from one of the five veto-wielding permanent members or one of the other ten Security Council members. Those color-coded ballots will come later in the process. But this poll is nonetheless telling in terms of the degree of support (and the degree of opposition) that each candidate receives.

And today, Guyana’s Ambassador to the UN, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, emerged as the front-runner in the race to replace António Guterres when his term expires at the end of this year.

Here are the results, courtesy of PassBlue.

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When analyzing the results, the most revealing number is the amount of “discourage” votes a candidate receives. That’s for the simple reason that the greater the number of “discourage” votes, the more likely it is that one of those came from a veto-wielding member of the Council, any one of which would sink a candidate’s chances.

Using that metric, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett is the front-runner with just three “discourage” votes. However, she is followed closely behind by María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s former foreign minister and a former President of the General Assembly, with three “discourage” votes, and Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, who is head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, with four “discourage” votes.

What’s notable about these results is also how they compare to the previous straw poll, held last month. Following that poll, Grynspan was the clear leader, with just one “discourage” vote and ten “encourage” votes. But over the last month, three other UNSC members signaled their discouragement with her candidacy.

This is part of a broader trend, though: in the first poll, Rodrigues-Birkett and Espinosa each received two “discourage” votes, but now they both have three “discourage” votes.

So what to make of all this?

Well, first, I would be remiss not to note that the two leading candidates, Espinosa and Rodrigues-Birkett, were both recent guests on my Global Dispatches podcast. You can find my conversation with Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett right here on Substack, and the María Espinosa episode here. Both are also freely available everywhere, including on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Clearly, there’s a Global Dispatches → straw poll bump!

But more broadly, these results show that there are three clear front-runners, with Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett on top. They also show that some candidates are longshots at this point. For example, IAEA Chief Rafael Grossi jumped from just two “discourage” votes in the first straw poll to six today. Having this many “discourage” votes at this point greatly increases the chance that one of those votes is from a P5 member.

That said, this race is still wide open! It could be that the current front-runners are facing opposition from a P5 member, and that none of the “discourage” votes for candidates lower on the ballot are from veto-wielding members. We just don’t know. And we won’t know until color coded ballots are introduced later in the process.

Also, new candidates are tossing their hats into the ring frequently. Last week, Ugandan diplomat Olara Otunnu joined the race. This week, Ecuador’s Ivonne Baki joined the race. I would imagine that, with such inconclusive results, we’ll see more candidates join the race in the coming week

I’ll obviously be following this all closely—and hope to bring you more conversations with candidates in the coming weeks. In the meantime, stay tuned for the next episode of To Save Us From Hell next week in which Anjali Dayal and I break down these results even further!

I try to keep most of my work free, but as always, your individual paying subscriptions are super important to the sustainability of my work.

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Drawing on her experience representing Guyana on the Security Council, Rodrigues-Birkett discusses what she learned about the UN’s strengths and limitations in preventing and resolving conflict—and what she would do differently as Secretary-General. She also lays out her approach to global development and global health, makes the case for diplomacy and international cooperation as essential tools for tackling the challenges ahead, and explains how a personal tragedy has fueled her passion for access to health care.

Our conversation is freely available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The UN is getting a new leader in January. This episode is part of a series of interviews with the candidates for Secretary General. Stay tuned for more!

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Transcript edited for clarity

Mark Leon Goldberg: Welcome to Global Dispatches, a podcast for the foreign policy and global development communities and anyone who wants a deeper understanding of what is driving events in the world today.

I’m your host, Mark Leon Goldberg. I am a veteran international affairs journalist and the editor of UN Dispatch. Enjoy the show.

Welcome to Global Dispatches. I’m your host, Mark Leon Goldberg. I am joined today by Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett, a candidate for UN Secretary-General and Guyana’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Welcome, Ambassador.

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: Thank you, Mark, for having me and indeed for the invitation.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, I’m very excited for our conversation today and what I hope will be a substantive conversation about your vision for the UN and how you’d approach the job as Secretary General. I think one thing that distinguishes your candidacy is that you very recently served on the Security Council.

Guyana was an elected member of the Council in 2024 and 2025, where you got a firsthand view of how the Council really operates, including, I’d venture, where it sometimes does not necessarily rise to its promise. I’m not going to ask you to diagnose all the ills of the Security Council right now, but rather, I’m curious to learn, were there any shortcomings in the way the Council works that the Secretary General, as a role, could help address?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: There’s always space for the Secretary General. And I am of the view that when there are differences amongst member states on the Security Council, that the Secretary General has a very good opportunity to be that neutral broker, that neutral voice in those discussions. And this is where I believe, should I be appointed, that I’ll be able to play a role.

In fact, had I not served on the Security Council, because this is the sort of ultra-political body of the United Nations, had I not served on that body, I would not have put forward myself for Secretary General. But I have seen what the Security Council can do. I have also had reflections of what the Secretary-General can do. As I said, the neutral broker when the Security Council is not able to come to decisions- sometimes it’s going to work, sometimes it’s not going to work. But I believe that there is space there.

Mark Leon Goldberg: And should, if you were to become Secretary General, and there is that dispute among the P5 that so often stymies progress on the Security Council and action on the Security Council on a mission, how would you insert yourself into that debate, or would you?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: One has to leave their ego at the door when you decide to put yourself forward for Secretary General and when you’re the Secretary General. So, you are going to have scrapes and you are going to have bruises, but you are going to be able to make progress as well. This is my belief. I recall that on the Security Council last year, there was a situation where some members of the council had different views on a particular matter.

And it concerned a country that was going through a lot of deep suffering. And I put forward myself to be, sort of, I don’t want to call it a broker because I was a member of the Security Council. My country was a member of the Security Council, but to talk with all sides in this. And it took some time to understand each other, to also bring the viewpoint of what inaction could mean for the population.

But I and my team, we took that on head-on, and we were able to see that after a couple of months, we were able to have that resolution passed in the Security Council. Why am I giving you this example? Because this is the approach I have to whatever I expected to do when I was a foreign minister, when I was a Minister of Amerindian Affairs, and in the Security Council, keeping one’s eye on the big picture, on the objective, how we can help people. And as Secretary General, this would be the same approach that I would take.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, obviously there are many crises that are facing the world today. And it has been a real, I think, fixture of everyone’s campaign for Secretary General to focus on their approach to conflict mediation and how would they approach seeking to prevent conflicts as well before they erupt. Is there a unique aspect that you would like to highlight of how you would approach conflict mediation and conflict resolution that you think is distinguished from the other candidates in this race?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: I did not look at my approach in relation to other candidates, but I certainly developed my approach based on my experience throughout the years and my experience on the Security Council as well. I think that one has to understand the context of a conflict, understand who are the conflict parties, who are the players with influence on the conflict parties as well.

And I am not oblivious to the geopolitical situation for each conflict. But the Security Council has, at the moment, about 38 active files. Some of those conflicts are more geopolitically difficult than others. But I believe that we can look at all of these conflicts and see where we can intervene. During this campaign, I visited countries that came out of conflict, that had peacekeeping missions. And today are democracies, relatively stable democracies focusing on development.

And they have spoken to me about the work the UN did with them to bring them out of that situation of conflict where they can now start thriving. And this is the kind of work I want to see the UN do more of. And you are right. Many people are looking at the Secretary-General, looking at the UN through the prism of peace and security.

Why?

Well, first of all, the charter, the first words of the charter is that the UN was established to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. But also today, we see that we have the highest number of conflicts since World War II by some measures. And so, progress on peace is what the world is looking for at this point in time. Of course, advances on development and advances on human rights. But I understand fully why populations are looking to the UN to resolve the conflicts that we have right now.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, I’m glad you mentioned the 38 active files at the Security Council and also many countries, and I would highlight, say, Liberia and many countries in Western Africa that have had very successful UN interventions in which they emerged from conflict, from civil war, with international support to become the sort of multi-party democracies they are today.

Surveying those 38 active files you see, is there one particular crisis or conflict that you see as potentially very right for successful UN intervention?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: I wouldn’t want to create a hierarchy of conflicts because the populations who are in those situations, the situation in their country is the most important for them. But what I would like to do is a sort of panoramic scanning of where we can make those interventions. I have some ideas, but I would want to, should I be appointed Secretary General, meet with the people who are currently involved, those who are on the ground.

There’s so much you can get when you are a member of the UN, when you are a member of the Security Council. But once you’re in that position, there’s much more that you will be able to obtain. But I do believe that there are spaces where we can make some headway. But you’re right, Mark, that in addition to what is on the council’s agenda, there are other situations that might not be on the council’s agenda that are also very important.

And so, the prevention aspect is extremely important. And this is where I believe that the Secretary General must be proactive, must be pragmatic, so that we can work faster to prevent conflicts as well.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, I wanted to turn to questions about global development, which seems, at least from my perspective as a journalist, have receded a little bit in attention among those who follow the UN for the fact that we’re in this era of expanding conflict. But for most of the world, the development agenda is the most important part of what the United Nations does.

You would be Secretary General at the conclusion of the Sustainable Development Goals. I wanted to first ask your diagnosis of the goals themselves as we stand four years before they’re due. What purpose do you think they achieved?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: First, let us not disconnect the development pillar from the peace and security pillar and the human rights pillar. They are all interconnected.

In fact, my view is that the best prophylactic against conflict will be development.

And yes, there are certain conflicts that would have a different sort of identity, but this is my view. And if you look at where underdevelopment is most pronounced, it is in these countries that are in a constant state of conflict. So, making progress on the development side, making progress on the peace and security side is equally important. And if we make progress on both of those, the human rights dividends would also increase.

Coming to the SDGs, yes, we have just a few more years to 2030. When I look at countries around the world, including my own country that received its independence in 1966, One would see that it takes a certain number of years to move to a state of real development. And without financing, that is very difficult. So, for example, my country was a heavily indebted poor country. Without debt relief, we will not be able to achieve what we’ve been able to achieve.

And now we have a little bit more resources. And I’ve seen how those resources have transformed our country in the education sector, in the health sector. And so, access to finance is extremely important. The point I’m making also is that as we consider the post 2030 agenda, we have to be realistic in several ways in terms of the timelines. 15 years to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals might have been very, very ambitious.

So, as we consider the post-2030 agenda, we would have to ensure that our ambition matches the means of what we will be able to achieve for the next period. But the goals remain very, very valid, very noble. I know member states would have to consider how we approach them, but certainly they remain valid. So, access to finance, being realistic about the timeframe, being realistic about the actions that we would take, and also how we work closer with the international financial institutions.

While the UN is a norm-setting organization, and a lot of good work has been done in that regard, the decisions on financing, those are made with the IFIs. So, a better relationship with the IFIs, I think, will be needed.

Mark Leon Goldberg: You preempted my next question because the UN is not a financial, an IFI, international financial institution. But as you pointed out, and as many experts would point out, that access to finance in terms of concessional loans or better terms on loans or forgiveness if a natural disaster strikes and you need some time to repay loans to do the development, these are all kind of in the mix of the big ideas around how to accelerate global development in the coming years.

But of course, the Secretary General is not the head of the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund or any national central bank. So, what specifically could you as Secretary General do to improve access to finance?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: Work with member states to advocate with the international financial institutions. And I have said before that I would not be the Secretary General to stand on a pedestal with a moral stick to beat the IFIs. I think we need to sit down together as partners. The UN has a global voice, and this voice on access to finance has been there for a very, very long time.

There have been some movements, I would say, when I look, for example, at the IMF, I’ve seen that there have been some changes with respect to, for example, countries that have experienced natural disasters and how they are treated. What we need is some incremental steps, I would say, that would have a systemic effect across developing countries to make the system more fair so that you would not have to be borrowing at extremely high rates compared to a similar country that is larger. Let’s just say that.

But I believe that there is space for us to make progress on that. And the UN has actually done some work, for example, on the multidimensional vulnerability index. The small island developing states have been calling, for a long time, for the rules on access to finance to consider vulnerability. And some work has been done on that. A resolution was passed on the MVI.

How do we use that or aspects of that, for example, to how the IFIs use that, I would say, would be very important. And some work is ongoing right now as well in the UN, ongoing beyond GDP, so that we just do not use only GDP. But when we talk about reform of the IFIs, it sounds like a really big task. I am of the view that incremental steps could have really positive effects as well.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, you hinted earlier about what might come next after the SDGs. And I’d love to have you flesh that out a little bit. You would be Secretary General at the time in which, presumably, more development goals might be set. I suppose two questions. One, do you, big picture, agree with this idea of global goals setting? What sort of process should inform that and what should those global goals look like, if so?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: This will be in the hands of the member states. They set the sustainable development agenda. They will set the post 2030 agenda. But it’s also important for the Secretary General and the Secretariat to provide member states with the information that we have gathered. The UN has a very large footprint on the ground. And the information on what has worked, what we may need to tweak, what are some of the challenges we see, what are some of the positives that we’ve seen over these last 15 years, I’m speaking here by the time we’re discussing the 2030 agenda will be extremely important.

For example, do we need to do more with helping countries to be ready to engage with the private sector? That’s one area we may want to look at. There’s lots of money out there in the private sector, but how do we help countries to be able to attract investments? What are the criteria that must be fulfilled in order for those investments to come. We know that it’s going to be difficult, for example, in areas that are currently in conflict, but there might be other situations where we’re able to help.

So, the kind of technical assistance we provide to member states while we work on concessional financing, it’s extremely important. But this would be a very interesting process, I believe, as member states consider this. And also, let us not forget that while we will not, as a world, achieve the SDG, several countries have made progress. And let us examine what those countries have done in order to make that progress.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, I wanted to ask you a bit now about what I consider the twin to global development — global health. There has been, I think it’s inarguable, the significant progress in multilateralism on global health issues. How do you see your leadership of the United Nations continuing and contributing to that process of multilateralism on global health issues?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: The World Health Organization, which member states are members of, would have seen how the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many of our countries in a direction that we didn’t want to go – backwards. And many countries are still recovering from that. But we’ve also learned from that experience how we must be more prepared. So, pandemic preparedness, pandemic response will be extremely important. But also that the headway that we have made on certain other diseases, we need to also keep up the momentum so that we can have the eradication of some of those diseases.

But also access to medicine is extremely important. I have seen how the lack of access, I come from an Indigenous village, Mark. A very personal story here for me, but I saw my brother died in my father’s hands because of lack of access to a doctor. That situation has changed for my community in terms of access to health facilities and health providers. And so, improving access is extremely important and very close to my heart.

But I believe that we have learned quite a lot from the pandemic and that we will be better prepared. We must be better prepared.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Thank you for sharing that personal story. Can I ask you to describe that a little bit? How old was your brother, and what happened?

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: He was seven. And at the time, we had a health center which was staffed with medics, so this is not a doctor, but we did not have certain facilities for testing, for example, in terms of what was wrong with him. He had a seizure, and he was unconscious for a couple of days. And then we were traveling to another place, about 50, 60 miles, to the other closest facility that would have a doctor. We were going by boat through the river, and on the way to that facility, he died.

Mark Leon Goldberg: I’m very sorry, but it sounds as you brought this up, that it is something that obviously stays with you, but also is something that informs your approach to rural access and equitable access to health.

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: Definitely. And I’ve seen as well how education can help in this. And when I became Minister of Amerindian Affairs in 2001, we, Indigenous peoples represent 10% of Guyana. And at that time, we had one Indigenous doctor, just one. Why? Because 90% of our people, our students had no access to high school. You have to go to high school to be able to go to university. And we were able to, through very direct policies, through some people may want to call it affirmative action, but through very direct policies to ensure that Indigenous people’s access to education, to high schools, secondary education improved.

And today, we have many, many indigenous doctors. And I’m talking here just 25 years later. But one has to put the investment in place. And so now some of those doctors are serving their communities. And my father today could go to the hospital and he can get an ultrasound. He can get an eye test just in his community. So, access is very close to my heart.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So you would be the first person of indigenous descent to become the Secretary-General. I’m curious to learn if there are unique aspects of your background as an indigenous person that shape your approach to diplomacy as a top diplomat from Guyana and would shape your approach to diplomacy as secretary general.

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: Indeed, we are all products of our experiences and our upbringing and, of course, our education. As you said, I was born in an Indigenous community, but I’m from a country that is multi-ethnic. And in addition to the Indigenous peoples that were there, the rest of our population, their ancestors came from other continents, from Africa, from Asia, from Europe, the great majority under very, very difficult circumstances.

But what I have learned over these years, coming from an Indigenous community and coming from a group that is smaller compared to others, is that it’s very important to understand each other’s history, each other’s culture, each other’s background, concerns, but also aspirations so that we can work together to a common goal. In Guyana, it was a case of working towards nation building. In terms of the UN, of course, is understanding each other so that we can work to solve the global challenges that we face.

And so, I will bring that with me, the experience that I’ve had growing up in a small community, but also in government and working with others. I work as the permanent representative of Guyana here. I’m the only Indigenous person in this group. When I joined the foreign ministry, I was the minister, an Indigenous person, of course, a Guyanese Indigenous person, and there was one other Indigenous person there as well. So understanding each other and letting people understand you, I think it’s also very, very important.

And this was my approach on the Security Council too, always interested in the backgrounds of others. So, the positions that they put forward and the backgrounds of their country would help me to understand what could be possible solutions.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, Ambassador Rodriguez-Burkett, thank you so much for your time, for speaking with me, for this conversation. Good luck in the next round of straw polls and in your campaign. Thank you.

Carolyn Rodrigues-Burkett: Thank you, Mark. And thank you for the work that you do too.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Thanks for listening to Global Dispatches. The show is produced by me, Mark Leon Goldberg. It is edited and mixed by Levi Sharpe. If you are listening on Apple Podcasts, make sure to follow the show and enable automatic downloads to get new episodes as soon as they’re released.

On Spotify, tap the bell icon to get a notification when we publish new episodes. And of course, please visit globaldispatches.org to get on our free mailing list, get in touch with me, and access our full archive. Thank you.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who co-chairs the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about the intersection of global cooperation, diplomacy, and pandemic preparedness.

We begin by discussing what the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reveals about the strengths and weaknesses of the global pandemic response system. We then turn to the political and practical significance of a Pandemic Agreement reached at the WHO last year why an upcoming United Nations High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response is a crucial moment in global health diplomacy.

You can watch our conversation below. This episode is also freely available across all podcast listening platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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Transcript edited for clarity

Mark Leon Goldberg: Welcome to Global Dispatches. I am your host, Mark Leon Goldberg. Welcome, Helen Clark.

Helen Clark: Thank you.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So you are, of course, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, former head of the UN Development Program. Though, for the purposes of our conversation today, you are the co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. By way of introduction, can you explain a little bit about what the independent panel is and its work?

Helen Clark: The independent panel was convened in 2020. After the World Health Assembly meeting online in May, as the pandemic was gathering pace, asked the Director General of the World Health Organization to set up a comprehensive, impartial, and independent inquiry into how the international response to COVID-19 had been handled. So, eventually, Dr. Tedros reached out, by around July, to former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and to me, and asked us if we would co-chair this panel.

And he made it clear to us that the WHO would not seek to influence or shape our work in any way. The mandate was, as per the World Health Assembly resolution, we should get on and pick the panel, and they would resource what we needed to do. So, that was the history. We got going, I think, with the first meeting of the independent panel in around September that year. We had to report by May 2021, and that in itself, I think, carries a story because meeting in May 2020, I suspect the World Health Assembly thought that the pandemic would be done and dusted and we could digest the lessons from handling it.

Sadly, by May 2021, it was still gathering a lot of steam. You had the Delta variant that had come along, which was so deadly. And we were reporting literally in the eye of the storm, which made the report all the more important and I think ensured it got the attention it deserved.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, it’s because of your participation in that panel that you, I think, are one of the world’s leading experts on how global cooperation can serve pandemic preparedness and response. It really gave you kind of this broad view of the topic. In September, during the UN General Assembly, there is a key meeting at the UN on pandemic preparedness and response, the significance of which I wanted to discuss with you. But maybe to ground our conversation a little bit, I wanted to kick off by discussing the Ebola outbreak raging right now in the DRC, the second largest such outbreak ever.

What does this outbreak reveal to you about the state of pandemic prevention and response today?

Helen Clark: Sadly, it reveals that we are not ready. And let’s then deconstruct what I’m saying here. Look, this is the third Bundibugyo outbreak in this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mark Leon Goldberg: That’s the variant of the Ebola outbreak that’s raging right now in the DRC, which is unlike the other variants that we had seen more recently, at least.

Helen Clark: This is not the most common variant. It’s only the third time that it’s happened in Democratic Republic of Congo. And of course, there have been many more outbreaks of the other strain of Ebola, which I understand is generally the Zaire strain. But this one was not unknown. Notwithstanding that it was not unknown, we had no what you might describe as field test, a readily deployable field test which could detect that this was happening. And so, the initial tests that were being done were returning negatives because the test wasn’t able to detect this area.

But given that this had occurred before, and we know how in a fragile and conflict-affected setting, a deadly disease can get away, it’s interesting that no effort had gone into a test which could identify this. Secondly, given that it had occurred twice before, it’s interesting that no development of a vaccine was ever prioritized. Of course, we do now have something for the Zaire variant, but Bundibugyo, nothing.

And then, with neither detection capacity at the field level, with no vaccine, needless to say, there’s no specific antiviral either. So, when an outbreak like this occurs, you’re literally unarmed to fight it. Now, this one occurred at a time of tremendous churn and spending reduction in global health. And that meant that some of those who’ve been on the ground, like International Rescue Committee, which David Miliband leads, they’d had to cut their field capacity from five posts to two in that region.

Others were similarly affected. The U.S. Center for Communicable Disease Control is not what it was. And so, into this environment — fragile state, spending cuts — comes this outbreak. It now appears that it has probably been running since January, undetected. In May, when a health worker died in a facility, then eventually the test got sent to Kinshasa and was identified. But by then, this had been running for close to four months. So, it’s not surprising that this has become such a large outbreak with, I understand, many of the cases now presenting not coming from any known chain of transmission.

This means it’s got away. The last Ebola outbreak in DRC took two years to bring under control. But that was not this variant. We are going to have to have quite a long, sustained response, plus the support of some more tools like a vaccine and ideally an antiviral medication which can deal with this as best as possible, and Public Health 101 detection, surveillance, building trust of communities so they will present when family members become ill. This is a cocktail that needs very, very urgent addressing and international solidarity.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, so I wanted to ask you about Ebola because this, presumably, is the kind of outbreak that a fully functioning global pandemic preparedness and response, our defenses would have guarded against, should they be fully functioning to like the maximum capacity? And also, just in terms of timing, the outbreak was detected nearly a year to the month after the World Health Organization adopted the pandemic agreement.

Now, my understanding of the agreement is not in full force for reasons we can discuss, but I’m curious to learn from you what that pandemic agreement says and what it does. And if it were fully functioning in the way that you envision, how might it sort of support the response to the Ebola outbreak we’re seeing today?

Helen Clark: I think there’s a couple of layers to those issues. Firstly, the pandemic agreement cannot even come up for signature ratification until the annex to it, which deals with the duty to share pathogens in response for getting some benefit from sharing the pathogens, is negotiated.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Flesh that out a little bit, because I know that this is one of the key kind of issues on the table, this pathogen access and sharing agreement, this idea that countries on the ground, countries where pathogens are likely to occur, would have an obligation to share that information. And then countries that have the capacity to develop remedies to it would have an obligation to share those remedies. This is like a key node that’s yet to be agreed.

Helen Clark: It is yet to be agreed. And had it still been in the first pandemic agreement text, we’d never have got agreement on that because this cuts to the heart of what went wrong with COVID. What went wrong with COVID was that as soon as the vaccines were developed, the capacity that there was to produce them was snaffled up by high-income countries. And when many of us in the West were getting our first or second boosters, there were still health workers, let alone communities and low-income countries who’d never had as much as a single vaccination jab.

So, developing countries were rightly very, very angry about the inequity in the response. And when, for example, the Omicron strain of COVID-19 came along, and South Africa faithfully reported it under the international health regulations, it then started to face some retaliation with people putting up barriers to travel and so on. And people are saying, look, we’re reporting, we’re retaliating against, you know, in the West, you’re developing these vaccines and medications, but we’re not getting the benefit of them.

So, there’s got to be a better deal here. There has to be equity built into these responses. And it’s this issue that remains unresolved years after talks on the pandemic agreement began, which, correct my memory if wrong, but goes back to about the end of 2021. Now, this is not good enough. I sometimes compare the lack of speed with which this issue has been addressed in international negotiations around a convention with what happened after the horrific nuclear accident at Chornobyl.

Within five months of Chornobyl, a specific regional event, you had two new nuclear safety conventions. Well, here we are into the seventh year post the beginning of COVID, and we don’t have a treaty ready to go for signature and ratification. So, there’s something deeply wrong here, and it’s the inequity equity issues which are holding it up. So, happy days that we may get an agreement which could go to the World Health Assembly next year. But then, of course, you have to go through ratification. You have to get enough signatures for that.

And as well, you have to ongoing be supporting the capacity of even the most fragile and conflict-affected countries, like this eastern region of Democratic Republic of Congo, to be able to operate the system. And so, you need both the legal instrument, but also the capacities and the support to make things happen on the ground. At the moment, we don’t have either in this case of Bundibugyo.

Mark Leon Goldberg: I’m wondering, you know, to what extent is this upcoming high-level meeting at the United Nations on pandemic preparedness and response and attempt to overcome the stalled dynamic that you described, particularly around that pathogen access and benefit sharing system. Is that really the intention here with gathering presidents and prime ministers all in one room at the UN to build political momentum to breach the divide that you just described?

Helen Clark: I’ve always been in favor of bringing these issues to New York because, important as the World Health Organization and World Health Assembly are, the reality is that generally heads of state and government don’t go to the World Health Assembly. But they do come to New York. So, you’ve got a chance-

Mark Leon Goldberg: Especially my government.

Helen Clark: Well, this is great…

Mark Leon Goldberg: These days, at least.

Helen Clark: …because it’s left, and the same with Argentina. But they do go to New York. They’re represented there, which doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to get the agreement. But at least everybody is around. So, if you bring it to New York, you get a higher level of attention. You get foreign ministers there. And undoubtedly, a number of health ministers will come for this occasion, too. So, one of the recommendations that our independent panel for pandemic preparedness response made back in May 2021 was that there should be a high-level meeting. And there was one.

It was a bit disappointing, to be honest. It wasn’t concrete enough. The jury was still out on what would happen with the pandemic agreement. I always saw two scenarios for this follow-on high-level meeting, which was in the outcome document of the last high-level meeting in New York. One was that the agreement had been completed in Geneva with this annex around the pathogen access and benefit sharing settled. And then you could have used the high-level meeting as a rallying cry for ratification so that the agreement came into force.

The other scenario, which is the one we’re now in, was that this annex had not been agreed. And this needs to be a wake-up call meeting. And for heaven’s sake, here we are all these years after COVID, a number of other public health emergencies of international concern declared by the WHO since then. We’re still not there. We still don’t have the money. We’re now actually in some difficulty with the prospect of not having a proper monitoring and accountability mechanism. The global body that was set up, the GPMB, which we’ll have to decode, but the body initially co-chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, which looked at how prepared we were, that goes out of existence this year. What is going to replace this is a kind of global accountability body.

We don’t have adequate funding for the pandemic fund, which invests in preparedness for countries. We don’t have a surge mechanism for when the worst happens, and a global pandemic materializes. There’s a lot of things that need to be put on the table and spoken frankly about at this high-level meeting.

Mark Leon Goldberg: I wanted to go through a few of those issues that you just described and discussed. The first, though, it really does seem that this outstanding unfinished annex, that’s the pathogen access and benefit sharing system, is what really needs to be agreed upon in order for this agreement to take hold. Could you just lay out for me what you think like an ideal outcome here would be? What would like an equitable and useful pathogen access and benefit sharing system look like?

Helen Clark: So, I would say that that system is essential but insufficient on its own. What is being talked about is that there would be a proportion, generally 20% is talked of, of the products, the innovative products that come from access to the pathogen, whether it’s-

Mark Leon Goldberg: Like vaccines or something or the remedies.

Helen Clark: Vaccines, the commodities, countermeasures, they call them the vaccines and the medications, the therapeutics. That a proportion of that would be set aside for allocation by the WHO, the World Health Organization, to low-income countries. But that won’t entirely do the job. It’s important, and it’s important the agreement’s completed on a fair basis around that issue. What I think is even more important is that there is support for a broader ecosystem for developing and producing these, “countermeasures,” as we call them.

And that means we need more research and development supported in the global south. We need that link to manufacturing capacity in the global south, and we need it then a distribution mechanism backed by international funding for the poorest countries so that everybody can get access. With the best will in the world, Western pharmaceutical companies, and indeed supplemented by whatever India was producing, China was producing, etc., did not satisfy the need.

We need to augment capacity. One of the mechanisms which the Gavi, the Global Vaccine Alliance, which I am now chairing the board of, has done, is set aside over a billion dollars for an African vaccine manufacturing accelerator to support African-based companies coming into this area. We have to have capacity in the regions. And with that capacity, backed by the R&D, and with this terrific R&D in Africa, and then backed by the solidarity financing mechanisms, and by Africa CDC, Africa Centers for Communicable Disease, and the WHO and everyone else, build the capacity to make this whole ecosystem work.

So, while the PABS agreement, the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement, is critical, and we won’t get an agreement to ratification stage without it, we need this other work on building the ecosystem for response as well.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, at this high-level meeting, It would seem that there are probably some political fault lines that need to be navigated in order for a outcome document. Presumably it would be like a consensus outcome document that all participants in the meeting would need to sign off on. What are some of the key disputes right now about six weeks ahead of this meeting that need to be resolved in order for an outcome document to be both, I suppose, ambitious and adopted by consensus?

Helen Clark: There was a proposed outcome document that was put to member states in very, very recent weeks. And it had a date on it, as I recall, for last week or the last couple of weeks, where it was under a silence procedure. And if nobody objects, then the document goes through. Well, actually, the silence was broken by most member states and for the whole range of regions. And the breadth of the silence breaking indicates that today the facilitators haven’t done their job. The negotiators haven’t done their job.

So, they’re going to have to work through the summer if there’s to be an outcome document before September, which I hope there will be. So, what are they tripping up over? Well, I mean, some is, you know, same old, same old — there’s a reference to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and that triggers an allergic reaction from some member states, so we don’t need to list who they are.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, I can list them.

Helen Clark: You can list them.

Mark Leon Goldberg: The United States has typically, in the last several months, objected routinely to references in UN documents that include references to sexual and reproductive health.

Helen Clark: Yes.

Mark Leon Goldberg: I said it so you don’t have to. I’m not a diplomat. I’m not the only one, but yes.

Helen Clark: So then there’s the issue of financing commitments, that developing countries want firmer commitments on preparedness financing, because as I said, the pandemic fund is grossly underfunded. The recommendations, by the way, from both the independent panel and the G20 panel on financing for pandemic preparedness, both recommended in the vicinity of $10 billion to $15 billion a year for solidarity, financing, for preparedness.

Honestly, they’ve had about a fifth of that once, not $15 billion every year. So, they’re doing the best they can with a rather small amount of money. And there’s no such financing mechanism to speak of. But the developing countries are pushing for this. The North is pushing back. Hardship. Anyway, then there’s the issue to be tripped over, which relates to TRIPS, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement under the WTO.

And some countries feel, obviously, that there should be more scope under these waiver provisions for the World Trade Organization, that when a pandemic comes along, all bets are off and you share the intellectual property. But this has long been resisted by high-income countries where the world’s major pharmaceutical companies reside. And this, again, comes back to the heart of the equity-inequity issue. If you can’t get rapid technology and expertise transfer, then in the eye of the storm, even manufacturing capacity in a developing country could be prevented from producing to scale to deal with the outbreak.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, you know, as you describe it, there are many opportunities for disagreement between countries coming into this meeting. What would a successful outcome to this high-level meeting look like for you, and how will we know it’s successful?

Helen Clark: Firstly, we, from the independent panel and others in the friends group for the high-level meeting, and there’s quite a number of organizations, including The Elders, which I’m also a member of, and others, we would like to see concrete commitments around finance. We would like to see commitments made that are actually measurable, that you can count, not just vague abstractions. We would like to see a clear steer towards having a monitoring and accountability mechanism for people doing what they say they will do around preparedness and response.

And as I said, the mechanism we’ve got, this Global Pandemic Monitoring Board or Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, goes out of existence this year. We would also like to see a reference to a timetabling at a next high-level meeting. You really do need these every three years or so. Otherwise, this topic really will fall off the international agenda. And it must not, because pandemic threats are coming at us at an ever greater rate as we, as human beings, more and more intrude on the wild space and ecosystems and expose ourselves more and more to the spillover diseases from animals, the so-called zoonotic diseases. We are greatly at risk.

Climate change is playing a part in all this, deforestation. We as human beings are rather good at wrecking the ecosystems on which we really rely. So, we can’t think that COVID-19 is going to be the last pandemic that materializes in our lifetimes. The threats are coming at us all the time, and we have to be much better prepared.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Helen Clark, thank you so much for explaining this all to me and for your work on this issue and keeping us all safe. Thank you.

Helen Clark: Thank you.

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Is Russia’s economy finally approaching a breaking point? And what might that mean for Vladimir Putin’s grip on power and his ability to sustain the war?

I’m joined today by Charles Lichfield, director of economic foresight and analysis and the C. Boyden Gray Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. He is the author of a new report showing how recent developments have intensified some of the Russian economy’s underlying structural weaknesses. In our conversation, he explains why Russia’s economy is beginning to crack after four years of war in Ukraine—and what those cracks could mean for the future of the war.

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In this special live episode of To Save Us From Hell, Anjali Dayal and I break down how the selection process works, examine the backgrounds of the four leading candidates, and analyze what the first poll reveals about who may ultimately become the next leader of the United Nations.

This episode is freely available. But if you appreciate this kind of nerdy content that you can’t fine anywhere else, please become a paying subscriber. It’s the only way we can sustain To Save Us From Hell — the podcast with a cult following around United Nations!

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Here’s how these straw polls work: Each candidate is assigned a ballot, and each of the 15 members of the Security Council receives color-coded paper—one color for the 10 elected members and another for the veto-wielding permanent five, or P5. Diplomats then mark “encourage,” “discourage,” or “no opinion” next to each name. If a candidate receives a “discourage” vote on a ballot associated with the P5, that candidate is probably out—it means they would likely face a veto in the formal vote.

This first straw poll, however, will be undifferentiated, meaning there will be no separate colors for permanent and elected members. Still, it could begin to winnow the field. If a candidate receives a substantial number of “discourage” votes, they are probably out. Conversely, if a candidate receives a substantial number of “encourage” votes, along with some “no opinion” votes and no “discourage” votes, it would suggest that they can pass muster.

This Friday, Anjali Dayal and I will go live here on Substack with our analysis of the results. Tune in if you can! I’ll also send out the recording afterward for those who can’t join us live.

Meanwhile, I wanted to flag some other highlights from recent and upcoming episodes.

• Don’t miss my conversation with Secretary-General candidate María Fernanda Espinosa, who discusses her vision for the UN. (I’m actively trying to book the other candidates as well.)

• Our most recent To Save Us From Hell episode goes deep into all the controversies surrounding the International Criminal Court, which just voted to oust Prosecutor Karim Khan. We explain what’s going on.

• Earlier this week, I published an interview with former U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, recorded live at the Aspen Security Forum. You can find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• Later this week, I’ll publish my conversation with Carl Skau, acting executive director of the World Food Programme, who discusses how the Iran conflict is affecting global food security—and why he is so worried about the coming super El Niño. You’ll find that on Thursday on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Other upcoming episodes include a conversation with former New Zealand prime minister and UNDP chief Helen Clark, who is leading a major UN-backed effort on pandemic prevention and preparedness; a discussion with experts from the International Crisis Group about what actually causes peace in the world today; and an interview with journalist Sarah Maslin, who wrote a fascinating piece in The Economist about the precarious situation facing the thousands of Cuban doctors sent around the world on humanitarian missions.

All of these episodes will be freely available. But, as always, if you are able to support my work with a paid subscription, please do so! These episodes are free—but they also represent hours upon hours of work. Your subscription helps ensure the continued success of Global Dispatches. You can support my work at full price or using the discount button below.

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Of course, the New York mayor has no authority to do so—and a longstanding headquarters agreement between the United States and the UN compels the U.S. to admit foreign officials traveling to address the organization, no matter how odious. Meanwhile, Mamdani’s remarks came a week after Marco Rubio announced an all-out assault on the ICC, threatening to dismantle the court. All of this is taking place amid an unprecedented push by ICC member states to potentially remove the current prosecutor over allegations of sexual misconduct.

We kick off this episode of To Save Us From Hell by talking all about the ICC. We discuss the specific allegations against Netanyahu; the obligations of the United States—and New York—as host of the UN; the historical precedents involving leaders wanted by the ICC who have sought to come to the UN; why Marco Rubio will likely fail in his effort to dismantle the court; and what the future holds for embattled ICC prosecutor Karim Khan.

In our other segments, we discuss a reported effort by the Trump administration to withdraw from the UN Refugee Agency and an unexpected potential candidate in the UN secretary-general race.

The full episode is available immediately below the fold for our paying subscribers. You can support our work at full price, or using the discount button below. We can’t keep this show going without your support, so thank you!

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Of course, the New York mayor has no authority to do so—and a longstanding headquarters agreement between the United States and the UN compels the U.S. to admit foreign officials traveling to address the organization, no matter how odious. Meanwhile, Mamdani’s remarks came a week after Marco Rubio announced an all-out assault on the ICC, threatening to dismantle the court. All of this is taking place amid an unprecedented push by ICC member states to potentially remove the current prosecutor over allegations of sexual misconduct.

We kick off this episode of To Save Us From Hell by talking all about the ICC. We discuss the specific allegations against Netanyahu; the ob…

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You’ll get sound bites from that forum. But for an in-depth understanding of how one candidate approaches multilateral diplomacy at this particularly fraught moment, I speak with María Fernanda Espinosa in this Global Dispatches exclusive.

María Fernanda Espinosa is a former foreign minister, defense minister, and UN ambassador for Ecuador. She also served as president of the UN General Assembly from 2018 to 2019. As she explains, she cut her teeth working with Indigenous communities in Ecuador—an experience that continues to shape her approach to diplomacy, politics, and problem-solving.

Now, she is running to become the next United Nations Secretary-General.

We cover a great deal of ground in this interview, including her proposal to create a crisis-prevention and early-action hub at the UN; her views on the organization’s role in conflicts involving Iran and Ukraine; how the Secretary-General can support global health and development; and what should replace the Sustainable Development Goals after their 2030 deadline.

This is an insightful interview with a leading international diplomat who wants to lead the United Nations at a particularly precarious moment in geopolitics. It is freely available here on Substack, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy!

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Transcript edited for clarity

Mark Leon Goldberg: Welcome to Global Dispatches. I am your host, Mark Leon Goldberg. I am joined today by María Fernanda Espinosa, former ambassador to the United Nations for Ecuador, former foreign minister and defense minister for Ecuador, former president of the General Assembly, but for the purposes of our conversation today, a candidate for UN Secretary General.

Welcome, Ms. Espinosa.

María Fernanda Espinosa: Very happy to be with you today, Mark, and thank you for the invitation.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, thank you for joining. So, I want to have just a very substantive conversation about the issues and challenges you would face should you become UN Secretary-General. But by way of introduction, I am curious of learning a little bit more about you and your own political style, your own diplomatic style. Are there any stories or anecdotes you can share that you think might be particularly illustrative of the approach you bring to diplomacy?

María Fernanda Espinosa: Well, I am not a career diplomat, and I have to acknowledge that. I’m a practitioner. So, my experience comes from being out there and practicing and exercising diplomacy at the community level a long time ago when I lived five years in the Amazon and worked with Indigenous peoples. That’s where I learned most of my listening skills and in trying to understand different standpoints, different cultures, different ways of coming together.

And, of course, in public office for so long that it allows me to be connected to the UN in all the different spaces, in the three pillars, serving as ambassador in Geneva and New York, understanding how the big machinery of the UN works on the human rights pillars, serving on the Human Rights Council as ambassador to New York, understanding more the political UN, being the president of the General Assembly, which is the highest UN position.

It’s the universally elected position where you represent 193 member states. And I would say, if you ask me about style, it’s, first of all, about the ability of deep listening, of humility, of understanding public service, not as a personal entitlement, but as a public earned trust of the people that you serve. Number two, leadership style that looks very much to outcomes, to impact, to results, not too much about process.

Sometimes in the UN, they confuse activity with impact, reports with impact. And that I understand very well, because as foreign minister, I was the counterpart of the UN Country Teams in how agencies and programs operate on the ground. So, you know, this is what I bring to the UN. And also, I would say I am a person that has the courage to take decisions that need to be taken.

And I’m saying this having transformed the armed forces of my country, almost 50,000 people with almost a similar budget of the UN budget and not being afraid of taking hard decisions.

In the case of a Secretary-General, these decisions, many of the decisions are in the hands of the Secretary-General, but also in her ability to work in consonance and in listening to the member states because you are a chief administrative officer. That’s what the charter said.

Mark Leon Goldberg: You mentioned the big machinery of the UN. I’ve been following your campaign closely for the last several months. One idea that you’ve put on the table is to create an early action and prevention hub. Can you just flesh out that idea a little bit? Why is a hub like this needed? What problems would it solve? And how would it work functionally?

María Fernanda Espinosa: First of all, it is known to the audience that the UN is undergoing a profound crisis, financial crisis, which for me, it’s a symptom of a deeper crisis, which is more an institutional crisis, a credibility crisis, an impact and delivery crisis. So, it would be strange for a candidate to say, “I will create or establish something new.” So, it’s the opposite. It is to use the already existing infrastructure within the UN in a better way. For example, most people don’t even know that there is something called the UNOCC, which is the UN Operations and Crisis Center of the UN.

It’s a big machinery producing excellent analysis, excellent early warning, but it goes through a very convoluted pathway until it reaches the Secretary-General. It has to be verified. It goes here, it comes there. The Prevention and Early Action Hub would be a device to inform the Secretary General 24-7 for the Secretary General to take decisions on time, to produce information that goes directly to member states, especially members of the Security Council, to alert on certain situations. I am not naive. I know that that can be also seen with a certain reluctance, being very careful about non-interference in particular situations.

But I am a politician and a practitioner in diplomacy, and that gives me the elements for judgment, for being extremely serious about how I use the information, how I alert member states, how I take decisions. What has happened with the UN recently, and I don’t need to tell the informed audience, but the UN arrives too little too late when the worst has happened, and we need to avoid that. Of course, prevention doesn’t come in the headlines. It doesn’t bring the cameras. But I think it is the best investment because the UN is about protecting people.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, is there a particular crisis in the world right now that you would see ripe as being sort of the focus of a hub like this? That if a hub like this was operational in the way you envision, we’d have more visibility about it being incipient and its potential consequences?

María Fernanda Espinosa: Sometimes prevention is not only having a conflict never happening. Prevention is an operational principle of the whole machinery of the UN. Prevent escalation, prevent humanitarian disaster, prevent human rights to be abused in all the cycle of a conflict. And when you say give a very specific and concrete example, I would say every conflict that now makes the headlines, it provides space for prevention, preventing the worst, being there when it’s needed, preventing escalation, preventing the worst, you know, to happen. Be it in Haiti, where we are living a multidimensional crisis of big proportions.

It is in my own region and I am following closely. Preventing the worst to happen in situation and context as such as South Sudan or Yemen, when the UN has a very strong presence. And with that, I say prevention has to be an operating principle. It cannot be just an announcement, not just a headline. I recall, and everybody talks about prevention, but how is that you make prevention operational? It has to be an operating principle.

In the way the UN deploys its muscle at the ground level, at the country level, especially in countries in conflict, or early warning, of course, before things happen. And that is very difficult to sell, Mark. It’s obvious — How is that you convince the donor community that they’re not going to see a conflict because they have invested in prevention before the worst happened? It’s very difficult to quantify. It’s very difficult to sell, but it’s still the core homework to do of the UN.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So you mentioned that it would probably be most impactful on crises and conflicts that are maybe a little farther from the headlines. One very much on the headline right now, of course, is Iran. It, like to a certain extent, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a conflict that the Security Council itself is unable to confront for the fact that many of the belligerents are members of the Security Council.

But I’m curious to learn from you what role you see the Secretary-General as potentially playing in the crisis in Iran right now. Is there something that the office of the Secretary General can do, given divisions at the Security Council, to perhaps mitigate some of the impact of the crisis or to do conflict mediation itself on this kind of big-ticket, big-picture/big-ticket crisis like Iran?

María Fernanda Espinosa: Well, I think we have to accept that in the conflicts you just mentioned, we don’t see many references to the role of the UN. We don’t see the voice of the Secretary-General where it matters. And I think that the world of today, which has the highest number of armed conflicts since the Second World War. We are not living in times of peace and calm, unfortunately.

What is the role of the Secretary-General? Is to be present, to be available, to offer her good offices, to gain a space as being seen, perceived as an impartial player, as a bridge builder, whereas it’s Ukraine or Iran or the Middle East. And with that said, trust is something that you don’t declare — you earn. And how is that you earn the trust? It’s to be, as I mentioned before, perceived, seen, and tested as an impartial player, as an impartial actor, and be ready and be on call, but also be present.

And sometimes the Secretary General can and should take the front row. And sometimes the Secretary General and the UN needs to be in a supporting role. And we see that the UN is present in Ukraine, whether it’s dealing with prisoners, deploying humanitarian support, it’s there, it’s on the ground, but people don’t know that the UN is doing its job. In the case of Iran, there is UNOPS leading the charge on the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, for example. But the Secretary General needs to be more out there, more present, be persistent, be on call, and also adapt and to have the judgment of where to position the role of the Secretary General.

Because the contemporary geography of conflicts, the contemporary dynamics of conflict is very different. What we have in times, even recent times in the Iran-Iraq war or the Suez Canal, where the UN had a strong presence. I think it helps to see a Secretary General that is active, engaged, available, present where she needs to be. And that’s, I think, what the world is asking, crying for, to see a Secretary-General that is energetic, that is in action, that is there.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, I think it’s fair to say that part of the reason conflicts are proliferating at the rate they are today is a consequence of the geopolitical fragmentation that has been underway over the last several years, if not decade and a half at least, That seems to be accelerating. But I wanted to turn gears a little bit and ask you about global health and development in the context of this geopolitical fragmentation that we’re underway.

To what extent do you see global health as a potential opportunity or area for consensus, despite the divisions that we’re seeing today, particularly among some of the major powers?

María Fernanda Espinosa: Global health, I think we learned the hard way during COVID-19. We discovered that, first of all, that we are radically interdependent, that something that happens in one corner of the planet can affect and impact the lives and the well-being of people thousands of miles away. That we are interconnected in that solutions to the threats to global health have to be collective and have to be based in solidarity and cooperation. And I think we learned that very clearly during COVID-19. And I think that the UN infrastructure also learned the hard way.

Number one, even the working modalities of the General Assembly. I just finished my tenure as president when all this happened, and I was in shock because the General Assembly didn’t have a plan B on how to operate under the circumstances. And I think now it’s better equipped, better prepared. The same happened with the mega impacts of COVID-19. We still haven’t recovered fully from the economic and financial impacts of COVID-19. So, I think global health is a test case for multilateralism.

It’s an opportunity. It showed that global responses and collective action is the only way. And we have seen also some regulatory developments after that that are very good. For example, the review of the global health regulations. This might seem very bureaucratic, but it’s very important because it’s the protocols of how the world should act in a pandemic, for example. We had all the efforts towards a pandemics treaty that really calls for global cooperation. There is the whole discussion of supply chain security.

There is a whole discussion of access to critical medicines and vaccines. So, that is a test case for multilateralism. There is a lot of space for improvement, but I think that we have gone far. We had this success story in the near past about how to deal with Ebola and the Ebola crisis. Unfortunately, Ebola is coming back and hurting countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo today. But I think this makes the case for the need of a strong, renewed, vibrant multilateral architecture for collective action.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Looking ahead, maybe, in your time as Secretary General in the coming years, are there other specific areas for multilateral cooperation on global health that you see as particularly ripe, ripe for the taking? And what role would the Secretary General be in helping to facilitate that kind of cooperation?

María Fernanda Espinosa: Well, absolutely. We have so many commitments, Mark, that are out there. The entire agenda of universal health coverage. I had the privilege to serve myself in the universal health coverage advisory mechanism. The issue of non-communicable diseases and the commitments that are behind that. Antimicrobial resistance, which is a world challenge and program. The issue of opioids and how it’s dealt with.

I mentioned the issue of pandemics. And I think health is something that is so connected to the human well-being, to human life, that it really pushes us to collaborate and work together. And we are not in shortage of commitments, of mandates that are out there. And I mentioned some of those that have emerged from the collective will of the General Assembly of the United Nations. So, the agendas are there, the opportunities are there.

It’s something where you see the importance of national ownership, but at the same time, regional cooperation, which is a very important piece of the puzzle in international cooperation, and also a very critical and important role for our norm-setting and regulation coming from the United Nations. So, there is a lot of space and work to do. Great progress, I would say. When you look at the Sustainable Development Goals, Many of the goals on global health have improved the issue of access to vaccines, for example. Others have reversed and regressed, which is a pity.

Mark Leon Goldberg: On that question about goals that have regressed, so the SDGs are due in 2030. One goal, for example, that is far from being achieved, progress has slowed significantly, is maternal mortality, for example. What role might the Secretary-General’s office play in advancing, say, progress on maternal mortality in the few years we have left towards the SDGs and also towards other health-related goals that progress has stalled on?

María Fernanda Espinosa: We have seen recently a few reports on progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, and I’m so disappointed. I don’t know how to say it better. One of the reports talks about the 16-16 and the rest, 16 goals that are on track, 16 goals that are regressing, that’s where we’re doing worse, and the rest stagnant. I don’t know the word, but that have remained the same. And other reports, a recent report for the HLPF that just happened in New York a few days ago…

Mark Leon Goldberg: That’s the High-Level Political Forum. That’s the kind of stocktaking around the SDGs that happens at the UN every year.

María Fernanda Espinosa: Exactly. Yes. High-Level Political Forum. And what we saw, the latest report, it’s 15, 20 and the rest. 15 of the goals on track. A 20% moderate progress. And all the rest, either stagnant or regressing. So, if you ask me if this is success, I would say absolutely not. What are the problems, not only on the goals in global health issues, but what is at the core of this? What is the problem? And the problem is, you know, manifold. Number one, I would say access to resources. Where are the finances?

Where are the resources that countries can count on to invest where they need to invest? Number two is access to technology. We live in a world of, we say, the technological revolution, artificial intelligence, when about 30% of the world population is offline. The issue of access, of being able to use this technological revolution that we are experiencing and where we see greatest inequalities. And the issue of institutional capacity to deliver. These are called the means of implementation. It is true for the health space, but it is true also for the overall package of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Next year, in 2027, we will have an opportunity to re-boost the agenda. It’s the new summit on the SDGs on 2027. By then, hopefully me, but there will be a new leadership in the UN. It will be an opportunity for an honest assessment to fast-track and supercharge implementation, but also to look at the drivers of non-implementation. And these goals comes from the issue of how you manage debt, the international financial architecture, the Sevilla Commitment and program of action on financing for developments, the going down of official development aid worldwide.

Again, as I said, it’s not only an issue of access to the resources, but access to technologies, institutional capacity, and above all, national ownership. I think that development cannot be prescribed for New York, and we need to change the whole business model of how the UN does development.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, so, to that end, you would be the Secretary General when the SDGs expire, when there might be something new to replace it. I suppose a twofold question, you know, do you think something ought to replace the SDGs in 2030 when they expire? And what form might that take?

María Fernanda Espinosa: Well, first of all, I think that 2030 is a timeline, is a reference timeline. I think that the sustainable development goals, but in general, the development agenda, it cannot be seen as an expired yogurt. The day it expires, you just throw the can. No, it doesn’t work like that. It’s a continuum. It is a process. And I think a new leadership at the UN would help make this transition in a substantive way, in a way where countries have the lead.

They own the process. They can look at how to transit to a better model of development, how they choose their own development pathways where the UN has a supporting role and cannot replace states in implementing little projects here and there, but really looking at the structure drivers and the challenges that countries face. And I’m speaking, coming from middle-income countries, having been nominated by a small island developing state. So, I know very well what the problems are.

The problems are debt problems, liquidity problems, the cost of capital problems, the supply chain and industrialization mechanisms in the world. So, it’s more complex than what we think. But I am an optimist, and I think that we can reverse the tide on the Sustainable Development Goals and be very careful about saying, 31st of December, the Sustainable Development Goals end and we start with something new. I think that there has been a very important learning curve. We need to be the continuum. We need a roadmap to continue the development pathways.

We need to put more weight into regional ownership, regional cooperation, national ownership, the role of cities, the role of communities, to look at how to localize and own better the Sustainable Development Goals. And in what ways, as Secretary General, in what ways we can be more demand driven and provide countries the support they need. We have to be, the UN Secretariat has to be more demand-driven and less prescriptive.

Mark Leon Goldberg: So, I’m glad you said you’re an optimist. I’m an optimist as well, though I admit it’s a little harder surveying the world today to sustain my optimism. Final question, what is the source of your optimism? Where does your optimism come from?

María Fernanda Espinosa: I think humankind. I have seen great ideas, great transformations from humans that have made a difference in the world. Building resilience, building peace. The Nelson Mandelas of the world have existed. They are humans. They were humans. They have left a very important footprint. I have worked with indigenous communities in the Amazon where I have seen how you can make your living, your livelihoods, your care for nature in ways that you cannot even imagine. So, I am an optimist because I believe in humankind, but I also believe in the potential, the opportunities, and the strength and the muscle of the United Nations. And that is why I have decided to put my 30 years of experience to the service of the United Nations.

Mark Leon Goldberg: Well, best of luck to you in your candidacy. Thank you so much, María Fernanda Espinosa, for joining me today.

María Fernanda Espinosa: Thank you, Mark. I was very, very happy to be with you today.

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This civil war rarely makes headlines in the West. It erupted after Myanmar’s democratic transition collapsed and the military seized power in February 2021. The junta then violently suppressed peaceful protests, prompting many demonstrators to take up arms. The front lines have shifted in recent months as neighboring China has intervened more decisively on behalf of the junta.

I’m joined today by Kelley Currie, the new UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. We begin with a brief history of Myanmar’s long-running conflicts before turning to an in-depth conversation about the current dynamics of the civil war, the geopolitical implications of China’s intervention, and the particularly brutal military strategy that has resulted in so many civilian deaths.

This episode is free for all. But if you appreciate in depth briefings about conflicts and crises that don’t get the attention they deserve, please support my work with your paid subscription.

You can also find our conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Bolton, then the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, sought so-called “bilateral immunity agreements” with countries that would prevent them from surrendering Americans to the ICC for prosecution. His focus included countries that received American military assistance. The administration presented them with an ultimatum: If they refused to sign these agreements, certain military aid they received from the United States could be suspended.

This was around 2004. And, as you may recall, the United States had invaded and occupied Iraq a year earlier. The Bush administration sought to present this as an international mission and assembled a “Coalition of the Willing” to participate in the war. This included, of course, the United Kingdom, but also several smaller European countries.

One of them was Latvia, which was both a member of the Coalition of the Willing and a party to the ICC. When presented with the ultimatum, Latvia rejected the idea of signing a one-off immunity agreement with the United States. This led to the rather awkward situation in which Latvia was deploying troops in support of America’s war in Iraq while simultaneously being threatened with the suspension of U.S. military aid.

For me, this was an early lesson in foreign policy: Officials and administrations with an ideological axe to grind can sometimes fixate on precisely the wrong things. But when it comes to the ICC, there is a strain of American foreign-policy thinking that regards the court as a lurking boogeyman, poised to seize American citizens and subject them to show trials in some international kangaroo court.

This brings me to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement today, delivered through a State Department press release, a Wall Street Journal op-ed, and a video address, that he is determined to “dismantle the court.” The ICC, he says, is “waging war against our country” and “threatens every aspect of our political and legal system.”

The thing is, the ICC has been around for 24 years. It has a record. And nothing in that nearly quarter-century-long record supports the claim that it is hell-bent on going after Americans.

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First, a refresher on the ICC: The court was established in 2002 as a court of last resort, empowered to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, when national jurisdictions are unable or unwilling to do so. The ICC generally has jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of a member state or by the national of a member state. The major exception is that the UN Security Council may refer situations involving countries that are not ICC members, as it did with Sudan in 2005 and Libya in 2011.

The ICC currently lists 74 defendants, and 33 people are wanted and at large. The most famous among them are probably Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The United States is not a member of the ICC, meaning Americans are generally beyond its reach unless they allegedly commit crimes on the territory of an ICC member state and neither the US nor that ICC state pursues accountability.

The one time this became a serious issue was Afghanistan, which is an ICC member. In 2017, then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda sought authorization for an investigation that included alleged crimes committed by U.S. military and intelligence personnel. The court eventually authorized that investigation. But in 2021, Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that his office would deprioritize the allegations involving Americans and focus instead on alleged crimes committed by the Taliban and the Islamic State.

In other words, the one time the ICC even considered investigating Americans, the court opted against it. It has not charged a single American.

None of this seems to factor into Rubio’s declaration of war on the ICC. Among the measures announced or placed under consideration are:

• Diplomatic calls from the secretary of state, deputy secretary, ambassadors, and other senior officials urging foreign governments to withdraw from the ICC;

• Pressure on countries that partner with American law enforcement or the U.S. military—or benefit from the American security umbrella—to reject the ICC’s authority over American officials and service members;

• Increased scrutiny of countries that refuse to do so while continuing to rely on U.S. assistance;

• Diplomatic efforts urging other countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute to join the American campaign;

• Visa revocations and travel bans targeting ICC personnel; and

• Increased sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organizations.

If these measures are carried out, they would put traditional American allies—including most NATO countries—in a serious bind. They could be forced to choose between their obligations as members of the ICC and their security relationships with the United States.

So what is going on here?

One thing I try hard not to do in my writing or speaking is ascribe motives without evidence. It could be that Rubio is doing this primarily in defense of Netanyahu, who is wanted by the court over allegations involving the obstruction of humanitarian aid and the conduct of Israel’s war in Gaza. It could be that the administration is seeking to protect American officials from any future investigation arising from military operations on the territory of an ICC member state (which would not include Iran or Cuba, but would include Greenland). Or it could be to protect Americans from prosecution for the illegal targeting of suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean. Or it could be something else entirely.

We simply do not know what is motivating this decision at this particular time.

What we do know is that this campaign further weakens the rule of law at an especially precarious moment for the laws of war. Since the end of World War II, international law has advanced two basic propositions. The first is that states may lawfully wage war only under limited circumstances, principally in self-defense or with the authorization of the UN Security Council. Wars of aggression are prohibited. The second is that even when a war is lawful, militaries must abide by rules governing how it is fought—including the obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and the prohibition against deliberately targeting civilians.

Both principles are under greater pressure today than at any point in recent memory. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran are two glaring examples of major powers ignoring a fundamental precept of the laws of war. And then you have the conduct of militaries and armed groups in Sudan, Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, and Myanmar, among others, that have targeted civilians en mass.

The ICC hasn’t stopped this trend as much as it proponents would have liked. But it is is an institution designed to uphold one of the most basic ideas in international law: that there are limits to what governments and militaries may do during war, and that when national courts cannot or will not enforce those limits, another court should be able to step in.

The ICC has the receipts to show for it — the record includes real convictions for real atrocities. The court convicted Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga for recruiting and using child soldiers; Bosco Ntaganda for murder, rape, sexual slavery, persecution and other crimes in eastern Congo; Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen for 61 war crimes and crimes against humanity in Uganda; and, most recently, Sudanese militia leader Ali Kushayb for 27 counts arising from atrocities in Darfur. These are prosecutions of commanders implicated in some of the gravest crimes of the past quarter century.

At a moment when the restraints on warfare are already coming apart, dismantling one of the few institutions capable of enforcing them will do little to protect American sovereignty—or Americans from a court that has never prosecuted one. What it will do is tear down another pillar of the international legal order and make it easier for unscrupulous war criminals to get away with murder.

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