An event in New York on the sidelines of the high-level week of the 80th United Nations General Assembly on 22 September 2025 marked the launch of Article 109, a rebranding of the Coalition for UN Charter reform. The group is advocating for a renewal of the UN Charter through a General Conference. A pathway to achieve this is laid out in the UN Charter itself, through its Article 109.
Former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, delivered the keynote. She was followed by a fireside chat with former Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo, former New Zealand Prime Minister and UN Development Programme Administrator, Helen Clark, and The Gambia’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Muhammadou Kah.
Citing ongoing conflict, the unfolding of the climate crisis, and the unfettered expansion of Artificial Intelligence as symptoms of a failing international system, the speakers were in agreement that the UN was in desperate need of reform. A UN Charter review conference was framed as a way to rebuild trust, adapt global institutions to 21st-century challenges, and offer a way out of multilateralism’s malaise.
Both Robinson and De Croo spoke about their journey from caution on UN Charter review to support for this bold idea as a result of the plethora of challenges the world is confronted with. De Croo stressed that while now is the “adequate” time to start the process, Charter review will not happen overnight, allowing for consensus among UN Member States to be reached.
Commenting on what she would like to see in a renewed UN Charter, Clark endorsed bringing elected lawmakers into the UN, among other things: “I’m attracted by the concept of a formal Parliamentary Assembly, where the world’s parliaments would in effect assemble delegations to form a Parliamentary Assembly here.”
When asked about what Charter review would mean for Africa, Ambassador Muhammaou Kah emphasised that it is about “dignity, recognition, and agency”. He commented on how, in order to build an effective multilateral system, Africa, with its growing, and young, population, has to be given a seat around the table.
At the event, the founder of Minderoo Foundation, Andrew Forrest, announced a one million US-dollar grant to support the coalition’s secretariat and diplomatic outreach. “We can’t solve today’s crises with yesterday’s tools” he said in a statement released on the Foundation’s website.
The event’s reception was about providing a pathway out of the current gridlock in international relations. For Article 109’s Director, Heba Aly, mobilising for a Charter review conference is about “not seeing the status-quo as inevitable; it is up to us to try to create the future we want to see.”
More than 40 civil society organisations are part of Article 109’s network, ranging from campaigning organisations like Oxfam International, Democracy Without Borders and the Global Governance Forum to groups with a regional focus as well as various think tanks. One of the recent members is Club de Madrid, a forum of more than 100 former Heads of State. The Coalition gathered its networks, partners, and endorsers for a Town Hall in New York on Wednesday 24 September.
Helen Clark’s reference to a formal Parliamentary Assembly connects the Article 109 push to concrete institutional proposals for global democratic renewal. The long-standing proposal of a UN Parliamentary Assembly in particular has attracted wide support from among civil society groups. For instance, it is included in the platform of the We The Peoples campaign for public participation at the UN and in the People’s Pact of the Coalition for the UN We need.
“The creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly as a new principal UN body would be a major outcome of a UN Charter review. It is needed to strengthen the UN’s democratic character”, commented Democracy Without Borders’ Executive Director Andreas Bummel in Berlin. The draft Second UN Charter worked out by a study group convened by the Global Governance Forum illustrates how it could be done, he noted.
The Article 109 event was hosted in Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung’s New York office with support from its Executive Director, Stefan Liebich.