There needs to be internal regional agreement to aid negotiations in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to make the Assembly an effective and legitimate body to govern global affairs, says president of the sixty-fifth session on the UNGA Joseph Deiss.

“These positions need to be consolidated within regional political groupings, such as the European Union and the Southern African Development Community, to improve the UNGA’s ability to take decisive action on urgent issues affecting the global community,” he said at a South African Institute of International Affairs roundtable discussion, held in Johannesburg, on Monday.

Deiss argued that, due to the democratic one-country-one-vote model of the Assembly, decision-making was a complicated process within the body due to the number of countries involved in the negotiating process (South Sudan was recently inducted as the 193rd member of the UNGA). By limiting the number of players in the Assembly, he argued that decision-making would be less complex, thereby allowing the body to take efficient action on matters of concern.

This, however, is premised on the notion that there is unilateral agreement within the regional blocs on some issues. Deiss recognised this and encouraged informal discussion outside of the UNGA in the aim of fostering a common outcome on a regional level that would be translated onto the global forum.

He added that the principle of sovereignty remained the governing ideology that drives State’s decisions; however, there are certain issues such as climate change that were too broad to be addressed through State or regional intervention. In these cases, he argued that the UN remained the international moral authority on global issues.