U.N. to Adopt Scaled-Down Document for Summit

Negotiators at the United Nations have agreed to focus on broad principles instead of specific goals in a document that will be the focal point of this week’s summit on poverty and U.N. reform, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 25).

The final draft version of the document is expected to be released today. Nuclear nonproliferation and terrorism are among the topics addressed in the document, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The U.N. General Assembly will develop more specific goals during its yearlong session, the Times reported.

“What we can say now is that we will have a document that will reflect what is politically possible right now among 191 members,” said German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger. “It may not be the great reform idea that [U.N. Secretary General] Kofi Annan put into the world two years ago and might not meet with the excitement of all member states and of the press, but it will be an important step in the direction of a basic reform of the U.N.” (Warren Hoge, New York Times, Sept. 13).

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