United Nations leaders bemoan global turmoil as the General Assembly turns 80

LONDON — Just over 80 years ago, directly after the Second World War, the United Nations General Assembly met for the first time, in a Methodist hall in Blitz-damaged central London.

There, representatives from 51 countries convened to talk about the importance of international cooperation. Advocates hoped that the UNGA would be the main forum for world leaders to discuss global issues, and thereby avoid future conflict.

“We won the war by fighting together. We must now preserve the peace by working together,” said then-U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in his speech. U.S. first lady Eleanor Roosevelt also gave an address, which focused on the importance of gender equality.

On Saturday, the UNGA — which has since moved to New York City — celebrated its 80th birthday in the same London Methodist hall, near the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. This time, attendees addressed global uncertainty during the second term of President Trump.

“2025 was a profoundly challenging year for international cooperation and the values of the UN. Aid was slashed. Inequalities widened. Climate chaos accelerated. International law was trampled,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in his speech.

Guterres highlighted the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, calling them “vicious and cruel beyond measure.” He also raised alarm at the high levels of military spending around the world.

In recent weeks, Guterres has warned that many U.N. agencies are underfunded, with more than half of countries failing to pay their agreed contributions – including the United States. That limits the U.N.’s work, which includes distributing humanitarian aid, and helping tackle climate change.

Earlier this month, Trump issued an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from 66 international organizations, including 31 U.N. agencies.

Guterres, who is in his final year in the job, has repeatedly criticized Russia for violating the U.N. Charter by invading Ukraine in February 2022. He also has criticized the United States for its military operation in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro, and its deadly attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.

“We should not, even at anniversaries, sugarcoat that the United Nations and its principles are not only under pressure, but under heavy attack,” said Annalena Baerbock, president of the U.N. General Assembly, in her speech. “Not all of us are singing from the same songbook anymore.”

Baerbock, who is German, said she took inspiration from the optimism from the founders of the U.N. General Assembly 80 years ago. “As much as the world needs the United Nations today, the United Nations currently needs you to stand up for it, to defend it, and to get engaged with it,” she said.

Afterwards, experts spoke in panels about the issues of the day, from global peace to gender equality. Among the speakers at the event was Lord Robertson, a former British politician, who used to be secretary general of NATO.

“We face the prospect of going back to the era before the United Nations, and that was a wild world where disputes between nations were usually resolved by war and by conflict rather than through deliberation and negotiation,” Robertson told NPR.

Robertson will also celebrate his 80th birthday this year — just like Trump — and he said that while the U.N. can be slow and bureaucratic, it has helped make the world safer during his lifetime.

“We need to somehow make sure that [China’s] President Xi, [North Korea’s] President Kim Jong Un, the ayatollahs in Iran and President Donald J. Trump recognize that multilateralism is in the interests of all of us,” Robertson said. “The alternative is a return to open warfare and a Wild West of international relations.”