Latest Updates

Marking the opening of the 79th UN General Assembly, Crisis Group experts discuss challenges facing the UN’s efforts to promote peace. This page includes updates from the High-Level Week in New York, the 2024 Summit of the Future and recent Crisis Group coverage of the UN.

The war in Gaza has highlighted how debilitating major-power division can be for the UN. Yet the organisation is not hamstrung: in several crises around the world, diplomats can agree on modest initiatives to curb violence and shore up stability.

On 9 September, Crisis Group President and CEO Comfort Ero spoke to the UN Security Council as part of an open debate convened by Slovenia entitled “Strengthening UN Peacekeeping: Reflections for the Future”.

UN sanctions are under increasing scrutiny as a result of heightened tensions among Security Council member states. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Maya Ungar explains why some governments are pushing to scale back these punitive measures as others fight to preserve their core elements.

Originally published in Just Security.

UN secretary-general António Guterres conceived the upcoming Summit of the Future as an opportunity for visionary thinking about our global future. But member states have far more pressing concerns.

This paper was shared at a symposium on “The Past and Future of the United Nations Organization” hosted by the Centre for Grand Strategy at King’s College London on 30 May 2024.

As the European Parliament elections approach, conflicts in the EU’s neighbourhood are intensifying. In her introduction to the Watch List 2024 – Spring Update, Crisis Group President & CEO Comfort Ero assesses some of the challenges the EU will face internally and on the security front.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is on the verge of falling apart as Republika Srpska, the smaller of its two ethnically divided parts, threatens to break away. In this excerpt from the Watch List 2024 – Spring Update, Crisis Group urges the EU to help stop the fragmentation.