Apart from the usual scolding of Iran for having its nuclear program, the primary focus of the 2005 United Nations Summit was on organization reform, with much of the debate focusing on the reform of the UN’s place in dealing with the modern threat of terrorism.

UN General Secretary Kofi Annan opened the three-day summit stating, “We have not yet achieved the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required." By the end of the summit, the UN had produced and ratified a 35-page document restating much of its UN Charter, but making progress in areas such as development of impoverished countries, peace keeping, new UN reform management, and most importantly the UN’s role in fighting terrorism worldwide. While the document denounced terrorism “in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever, for whatever purposes," it failed to give a definite definition of what terrorism is.

The UN has been debating the definition of terrorism for over three decades because it will not allow terrorism to be equated with national liberation movements. The document also left out an entire chapter on terrorist disarmament, which was said to be a “real disgrace” by Annan.

World leaders were more optimistic, however. Both China and Russia, who face internal terrorists of their own, urged against unilateralism and preached the need for a world effort against terrorism. Putin went even so far as saying the United Nations "must remain the main centers for coordinating international cooperation in the fight against terrorism as the ideological successor of Nazism."

The leader of the world’s largest Muslim nation Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said however, "no human rights should be sacrificed and we must find and deal with the true causes" of terrorism. "We in Indonesia believe that interfaith dialogue and empowering the moderates can reduce radicalism," Yudhoyono said during the closing session of the summit.

Other reforms in the UN are coming slowly but surely.

After such lapses of leadership and credibility such as the Oil for Food scandal have put the UN in a bad position, and events like this summit are brining it back to the world stage.

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