64th Ordinary Session of the UN General Assembly scheduled to run until October 2

This year’s general debate seeks to deal with the mounting global crises and is being held under the theme: "Effective responses to global crises; strengthening multilateralism and dialogue among civilisations for international peace, security and development".

Foremost among global threats is the financial crisis blamed on last year’s banking and speculative misbehaviours in the West that precipitated the ongoing worldwide recession whose impact has been felt keenest in fragile developing world economies.

Although the so-called "green shoots" — signs of recovery — are beginning to be detected in some leading economies of the world, mayhem in the economy of the host country America, itself a global economic leader, provides an especially compelling backdrop to the session.

Equally, the 64th Session is expected to deal with issues of climate change about which little progress has registered since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.

The General Assembly is set to convene a special roundtable on the matter tomorrow, itself a prelude to a UN conference on climate change set for Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

The intractable issues of disarmament and Millennium Development Goals as well as those of human rights, will come under the spotlight.

Libya, which is chairing the African Union, will chair the 64th Session of the General Assembly.

Its three-time permanent representative to the UN and current foreign minister Dr Ali Abdussalam Treki, is expected to prioritise UN reforms which continued to elude the world body because of vested interests of some of its founder-permanent members wishing to retain dominance in world affairs.

The African Union has stridently called for wide-ranging reforms to the UN, especially in the powerful Security Council, which excludes it both by way of permanent seats and veto power.

The Security Council has also been used by powerful Western nations not just to victimise smaller states, but also to marginalise the General Assembly which is representative and democratic.

Equally contentious are well-meant provisions of "responsibility to protect" and "universal jurisdiction" which some permanent members of the Security Council seeking world dominance have tried to invoke against smaller states. Responsibility to protect allows the UN, through select countries, to intervene in circumstances in which the government of a troubled country is deemed to have failed to protect its citizens as expected. Often, this clause has been used to justify interference in the affairs of non-pliant states seeking to augment national sovereignties.

Universal jurisdiction in theory allows the International Criminal Court to indict and prosecute persons from anywhere in the world charged with crimes against humanity. In practice, the clause has been used selectively and largely against African persons only, with the United States placing itself above the jurisdiction of the Court.

To date, victims of the abuse of this principle have been Angola, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritania, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, the Sudan and Tunisia where senior government officials and, in the case of the Sudan, a sitting head of state, have been issued with international arrest warrants by judges in Western countries.

The Africa Union decided at its summit of July 2008 in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, to bring the matter up for discussion in the General Assembly. Until this session, this was not possible in view of resistance from certain Western countries. The AU raised the stakes by resolving non-co-operation with the International Criminal Court in respect of its decision to indict the Sudanese president over Darfur.

After the UN assembly many African leaders are expected to leave for a crucial Summit for Africa and Latin America to be held in Venezuela.

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