Nand C Bardouille | At UN Summit, CARICOM to focus on global risks to bloc

The current crisis of multilateralism is causing undeniable harm to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) bloc. This will likely be a common refrain among leaders of CARICOM member states when they gather in New York City just a few days from now for the world's premier summit, which takes place under the auspices of the United Nations (UN).

The 81st Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) officially opened earlier this month, setting the stage for the highlight of this high-level gathering: the so-called General Debate. Held annually in New York City at the beginning of a given General Assembly session, it provides a stage unlike any other for world leaders to outline their respective countries' take on the state of multilateral cooperation and associated national policy priorities.

Convened under the theme ‘Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All’, the 81st ordinary session closes on September 7, 2027. His Excellency Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh is the President of the General Assembly at its 81st Session.

While this time around the General Debate runs from September 22–28, taking place in the General Assembly Hall located at UN headquarters in New York City, High-level Week for the 81st Session of UNGA is scheduled for September 18–28. It comprises a broader collection of events, among which are special summits, high-level thematic meetings, bilateral diplomatic meetings, among other diplomatic engagements.

These high-profile gatherings are an essential slice of UN-based multilateralism, which Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states have long viewed as a crucial facet of their foreign policies, with generations of their leaders labouring to advance strategic autonomy in such terms. A case in point is CARICOM leaders' unequivocal support for multilateralism both at the General Debate and in the context of the High-level Week of the 80th Session of the UNGA.

To be sure, recent foreign policy actions of one CARICOM member state in particular have raised some uncomfortable questions in that regard.

THE CRUX OF THE MATTER

Still, the crisis of multilateralism has fueled deep concern across the board. There is an aspect of this that is spelled out in a statement CARICOM leaders made publicly this past July, underscoring the bloc's “commitment to multilateralism undergirded by the United Nations Charter and International Law, especially in the face of the pressing global challenges confronting the international community.”

It is fair to say that this concern is shared among Small Island Developing States and low-lying coastal countries (SIDS), a broad category of states within the community of nations of which CARICOM member states form a part.

Long treated by large states as an afterthought in international politics, in the current moment, such small states have once again punched above their weight in global affairs. Because three of the eight candidates vying to succeed UN Secretary-General António Guterres are nominated by SIDS, the international community is increasingly focusing on these countries' stake in the slow work of the latest iteration of multilateral reform.

SIDS fear that their capacity to determine their own course has been lessened even further by heightened polarisation, which characterises contemporary international conditions. The antithesis of closer cooperation, this state of affairs has set in against the backdrop of yet another post-Cold War shift in the international balance of power.

CARICOM leaders will surely place an emphasis on this development when they deliver their statements at the lectern in the General Assembly Hall in the coming days. They will no doubt call attention to associated globally significant conflicts, such as the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran – especially the Strait of Hormuz disruptions. Its impact is being felt well beyond the Middle East, disrupting energy supplies and bringing about a wide-range of other knock-on effects.

CARICOM'S MAJOR POINT OF CONCERN

CARICOM leaders' wide-angle view is of a world weighed down by fragmentation and instability, which are now commonplace, diminishing multilateralism in a way that does not play to these countries' strengths.

Under severe strain from an upsurge in transactional foreign policy, which works to the advantage of raw power, multilateralism no longer serves such states well. What is more, how they fare over the long run will depend on their ability to make concrete multilateral gains.

Wary of the decline in multilateralism, while mindful that the UN is a force multiplier for their foreign policies, small states of the Caribbean are integrally involved in wide-ranging efforts to remake the now 81-year-old international organisation. In the evolving international order, they are pinning their diplomatic hopes on a renewal of multilateral cooperation and, by extension, a multilateral system that can deliver.

Indeed, in recent times, against a backdrop of the UN facing an interrelated crisis of trust, legitimacy and effectiveness, few trends have captured the world's attention as much as UN reform. The UN80 Initiative – whose “goal is to make the [world body] more agile, integrated, and better equipped to respond to contemporary global challenges” – took top billing in that regard.

Given the stakes involved in this reform initiative, it has certainly got small states' attention. The 14 sovereign SIDS that comprise the CARICOM bloc and coordinate their foreign policy are certainly no exception.

As the UNGA convenes for its 81st Session, not only is the UN80 Initiative in the headlines once again, but comprehensive UN reform is the ultimate watchword.

Guterres' successor will have to take up the mantle of this reform agenda and, perhaps more importantly, drive it forward. This is a really tall order for the successful candidate, who – at year's end – will emerge from what is a “notoriously difficult” selection process.

Come January 2027, the eyes of the world will be on the next UN chief. S/he will enter the fray in a bid to better position the UN to address the world's most pressing issues, which cut across the three core pillars of the UN: peace and security, human rights, and development.

The latter pillar alone will likely present monumental challenges for Guterres' successor, who – as a matter of course – will have to lean into inter alia the Pact for the Future. It is designed to update global institutions and multilateral cooperation for 21st-century challenges, setting out 56 specific actions across five core areas.

A key focus of the Pact for the Future, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, by extension, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are in trouble. According to The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026, progress on the 17 SDGs remains slow and critically off track as the 2030 deadline approaches.

After becoming apparent over several years now, the thread running through some of the world's most pressing issues is clear: not least, it has three primary qualities that have system-wide implications.

The first is the contentious issue of the global power shift à la the fraught transition from unipolarity to multipolarity. The second is that the dynamics of this shift center just as much on great-power politics as they do on the Global South's skin in the game vis-à-vis the ongoing geopolitical churn. The third is that the growing prioritisation of transactional international politics now looms large in the scheme of things.

FINAL REFLECTION

The upshot for CARICOM member states is that a number of diplomatic steps that they have taken can potentially create a moment of opportunity for them to help address the crisis of multilateralism, which defies easy fixes.

And there is recognition within their ranks that the agenda of the next UN Secretary-General must squarely address this crisis, which has rattled the world body.

That Secretary-General's policy priorities will likely also focus on moving the needle relative to the organisation overcoming the crisis of trust, legitimacy and effectiveness, which has tie-ins not only to its present financial crisis but also to criticism that its key facets may no longer be fit for purpose.

As Guterres told leaders at the 18th BRICS Summit, held in New Delhi from September 12–13, “today's world looks very different from 1945, and global institutions need to change with it”. In reference to countries represented at this summit, Guterres' broader message is that the “old global order must change as power shifts to emerging economies”. In this thinking, BRICS members are illustrative of that changing reality: the emergence of a (contested) multipolar world. Against this backdrop, Guterres framed four priorities for what he called “inclusive global growth”: financing, technology, climate justice and peace.

There are obvious tensions at play in the rivalry between bastions of the western liberal order and the global rise of the so-called ‘rest’.

In sum, within the scope of today's international politics, CARICOM sees risk to its member states as partly coming from: (i) the entire gamut of UN reform ultimately falling short of its member states' expectations; and (ii) international relations-related dynamics that undercut efforts to renew multilateral cooperation.

Ensuring that its interests come out on top vis-à-vis these dynamics will be extraordinarily difficult for this bloc. Several factors have complicated this effort significantly, throwing UN-based multilateralism into crisis.

In addition, we should expect that existing geopolitical divisions within CARICOM will not help matters. That expectation has been further raised by Trinidad and Tobago's foreign policy choices vis-à-vis recent regional security dynamics involving Venezuela, giving a fillip to the Trump administration’s ‘Donroe Doctrine’. Policy disagreements over the matter of the Caribbean as a ‘Zone of Peace’ have also arisen, splitting CARICOM.

It is also clear that there will be no better time for the bloc's member states to have their say on a path forward regarding multilateral cooperation and the multilateral system than the on-going UN reform-related effort, and they are working concertedly to leave their mark.

In their respective pronouncements in the coming days in New York City, CARICOM leaders' will likely underscore the matters sketched in the foregoing analysis. In the course of doing so, they will go into some detail on both national-level and regional-level matters of note.

Several will also not want to pass up the opportunity to underscore that the region is leading from the front in a world in crisis, not least as regards the CARICOM-endorsed candidate – in the person of Guyana's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett – for the role of the 10th UN Secretary-General.

By the looks of things, at least for now, Ambassador Rodrigues-Birkett is the clear front-runner.

- Nand C. Bardouille, Ph.D., is the manager of The Diplomatic Academy of the Caribbean in the Institute of International Relations at The University of the West Indies (The UWI) St Augustine Campus, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The views expressed here are his own. ONLINE ONLY COMMENTARY.