Pact for the Future and Future of the Planet: A Stocktaking

The 2024 Summit of the Future was organized by the United Nations in quick succession to the two global conferences: in 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Summit and 2022 Stockholm + 50 Conference. It was a timely conclave to examine the state of the world in view of warning signs for a planetary level crisis. The Summit was expected to think aloud and ahead for the future of the planet Earth. Did it attain its objectives? The outcome document – Pact for the Future – provides a menu in usual UN jargon and gives calls to the UN member states to perform in several areas to secure future of our planet. Will the Pact help in making a course correction for the planetary future? Time will provide us answers to these questions. Still, the Summit yielded a great promise with an unwavering commitment to act in accordance with international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and its purposes and principles. The drafters of the Pact left no doubt whatsoever by positioning prima facie non-legally binding instrument ( Pact for the Future) on the bedrock of International Law in general and the UN Charter in particular. The inclusion of two more instruments as annexes on Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations, though work-in-progress, are also pregnant with futuristic possibilities. This paper seeks to provide a preliminary stocktaking of the Pact for the Future and its two annexes.