Deaglán de Bréadún assesses the prospects for the 61st session of the UN General Assembly which plays host to world leaders this week.
The annual session of the United Nations General Assembly begins quietly, almost imperceptibly. The outgoing president makes a farewell speech, highlighting the achievements of the previous 12 months and listing the issues that still need to be addressed.
The new president takes office with an address full of hope and ambition, a rallying-call to the nations of the earth to work together to bring lasting peace and prosperity to a troubled and endangered planet.
So it has been this year, with the energetic Jan Eliasson, who combined the Assembly presidency with the job of Sweden's foreign minister, pointing out that, on the plus side, two new UN institutions had been established. The Peacebuilding Commission aims to help countries emerging from the shadow of war to establish stability and lasting peace.
The other body set up is the Human Rights Council, replacing the controversial Commission on Human Rights, which had acquired an unfortunate reputation as a playground for dictatorships and other oppressive regimes.
Other changes and improvements were brought about, but the nettle of Security Council reform still has to be grasped. At present there are 15 members, five of whom have permanent seats and veto powers and therefore call the shots on major issues. They are the victorious powers in the second World War: USA, Russia, UK, China and France.
It's anachronistic and unrepresentative - no permanent member from Africa or Latin America for example - but there is no sign of any emerging consensus on the size and shape of a reformed Security Council.
The World Summit at UN headquarters last September was a disappointment in some respects, but its acknowledgment of the "responsibility to protect" was described by President Eliasson last week as "an historic advance". Traditionally the UN does not intervene in a country without the permission of the sovereign government, but the growth of internal conflict, so-called "ethnic cleansing" and genocide have led to a change of heart, although many former colonies remain deeply suspicious over what was originally called "humanitarian intervention".
However, Eliasson put the issue in stark terms: "We have seen the horrors of Cambodia, Rwanda and Srebrenica without taking action. The same tragedy must not befall the people in Darfur or elsewhere."
Seeking to put his finger on the fundamental problem in today's world, Eliasson - a highly-experienced statesman - wisely said there was an "underlying lack of dialogue among civilisations, cultures and nations".
It was appropriate in this context that the diplomat from the industrially and technologically advanced Scandinavian country should hand over to a representative of Bahrain, a nation that has been making a serious effort to modernise itself socially and politically and carve an image that contrasts with the troubled and strife-ridden Middle Eastern states we read about in the headlines.
The first woman to preside over the Assembly since 1969, Bahraini lawyer Haya Rashid Al Khalifa described the UN in her opening address as "an organisation of hope based upon commitment, consensus and co-existence". One of her first acts as General Assembly president was to welcome "the newest member of the UN family", Montenegro, which became an independent republic last June.
This will be Kofi Anna's last General Assembly as secretary general. His second five-year term of office comes to an end in December and the succession stakes for the toughest and most thankless job in the world have already begun.
The decision is made by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council and it's seen as Asia's turn this time.
The current front-runner is South Korean foreign minister Ban-Ki Moon (62) who came first in two anonymous straw polls when Security Council members were asked, both in July and last week, if they would "encourage", "discourage" or had "no opinion" about the names on a list of five contenders. But it's early days yet and a great deal of lobbying and politicking will ensue before the final choice is made.
As a student some 32 years ago, the present writer went along out of curiosity to observe the huge demonstration against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's first speech to General Assembly. Some 100,000 people, mainly Jewish New Yorkers, gathered outside the UN building to shout slogans like, "Hell no, PLO!"
A similar demonstration is planned this week against the current bogeyman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, characterised by the pro-Israel New York Sun newspaper as, "the Holocaust-denying, nuclear bomb-building, terrorism-sponsoring president of Iran".
Last year's hate-figure, for different reasons, was Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez but it already looks as if Ahmadinejad is going to occupy the spotlight.
Rather cleverly, he challenged his US counterpart, George W Bush to a debate. The idea was rejected out of hand by White House spokesman Tony Snow who said there would be no "steel-cage grudge match" between the two men.
As of tomorrow, the General Assembly will hit the headlines as heads of state and government, along with foreign ministers such as Ireland's Dermot Ahern, take centre-stage. Most of the interest will of course focus on the contribution from Mr Bush. His address to the General Assembly will be the culmination of a 20-day series of speeches centred around the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. All politics is local and the Republicans could be facing serious losses in the mid-term congressional elections in November. Observers say Mr Bush will seek to shore up support for the US invasion of Iraq which he still insists was an essential part of the "war on terror". We are likely to hear a robust defence of his Middle East policies combined with Churchill-style warnings about the dangers of appeasing fundamentalist fanatics (for "appeasers" in the Bush lexicon, read "Democrats").
Many of the speeches will doubtless highlight the need to maintain and accelerate progress towards achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals, a series of targets on eliminating poverty and disease adopted at the Millennium Summit six years ago. The deadline for achieving these targets is 2015 and there is some scepticism about the likelihood of success.
The UN has always sought to achieve progress on the social and economic front in parallel with its efforts to tackle the more glamorous and exciting political and security issues.
Total and unqualified successes in any sphere are very rare but still the work continues because, for all the UN's flaws and failings, the prospect of a world without an organisation aimed at achieving peace and consensus is too awful for most people to contemplate.
Deaglán de Bréadún is the Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times