J

The post-Cold War assumption that multilateral institutions could reliably contain crises has been severely tested over the past decade. Overlapping shocks — the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Israel-Hamas war that erupted in October 2023, accelerating climate disasters, debt distress across the Global South, and a fragmenting global trade order — have exposed the limits of the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions. The UN Security Council has been repeatedly deadlocked by vetoes, the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body remains paralyzed, and pledges on climate finance and pandemic preparedness have consistently fallen short of stated targets. Against this backdrop, the UN Secretary-General's 'Our Common Agenda' (2021) and the Pact for the Future adopted at the 2024 Summit of the Future sought to rebuild momentum behind collective action, proposing reforms to global financial architecture, new norms for emerging technologies, and stronger emergency response mechanisms. Parallel groupings — the G20, an expanded BRICS, the African Union (now a permanent G20 member), and various 'minilateral' coalitions — have grown more assertive, signaling both the appetite for cooperation and the contested nature of who should lead it. The topic before this committee asks delegates to consider how states can convert crisis into cooperative momentum: identifying which institutional reforms, financing instruments, and political bargains can credibly bridge the trust gap between the Global North and South, between major powers, and between governments and the publics they serve. The challenge is less the absence of proposals than the absence of unity behind any one of them.