Countries / United Arab Emirates / Dossier
United Arab Emirates
A combined view of United Arab Emirates's UN General Assembly speeches, treaty commitments, and voting record.
The narrative paragraphs below are AI-generated syntheses of the data shown — the tables and figures themselves come directly from the underlying records, not from the AI.
Compare with another country →Speech history
The UAE's General Assembly rhetoric has undergone a notable shift from 2006 to 2025, moving from regionally focused grievance-airing with modest multilateral framing toward increasingly explicit institutional multilateralism paired with detailed self-accountability. Early speeches (2006–2012) exhibited inconsistent self-commitment and relatively modest emotional intensity, but from 2015 onward, while maintaining strong regional focus and even elevated emotion around geopolitical disputes (particularly Iran and counterterrorism), the UAE has progressively elevated both multilateral and self-accountability rhetoric. The most recent speeches (2023–2025) reflect a marked turn toward legitimizing UN institutions, climate action, and humanitarian initiatives—with 2024–2025 scores reaching their highest multilateralism (78) and self-accountability (66–74) across the entire series.
| Session | Multilateralism | Emotional intensity | Concreteness | Self-accountability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | High | Medium | Medium | Low |
| 2007 | Medium | Low | High | High |
| 2008 | Medium | Medium | High | Medium |
| 2009 | High | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 2010 | Medium | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 2011 | Medium | Low | Medium | High |
| 2012 | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| 2015 | Medium | Medium | High | Medium |
| 2017 | Low | High | Medium | Medium |
| 2018 | Medium | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| 2019 | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
| 2020 | High | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| 2021 | High | Low | Medium | Medium |
| 2022 | High | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| 2023 | High | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| 2024 | High | Medium | High | High |
| 2025 | High | High | Medium | High |
Treaty status
Full treaty record →The UAE demonstrates strong and consistent commitment to environmental and human rights treaty frameworks, having ratified 9 of 10 major environmental treaties tracked (including the Paris Agreement and all core pollution-control conventions) and 4 of 5 human rights instruments. However, the UAE's approach to security and justice mechanisms remains selective and cautious: it has ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and two trade-governance conventions, but has not ratified the Arms Trade Treaty (signed only), declined to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or anti-personnel mines convention, and notably has not taken action on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (signed but not ratified). This pattern reflects a preference for environmental and developmental commitments over constraints on state military autonomy or submission to international criminal jurisdiction.
Arms control & security
- Arms Trade TreatySigned, not ratified
- Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban TreatyRatified
- Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their DestructionNo action
- Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear WeaponsNo action
Environment & climate
- Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their DisposalRatified
- Convention on Biological DiversityRatified
- Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone LayerRatified
- Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeRatified
- Minamata Convention on MercuryRatified
- Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone LayerRatified
- Paris AgreementRatified
- Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International TradeRatified
- Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic PollutantsRatified
- United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in AfricaRatified
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeRatified
Human rights
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or PunishmentRatified
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against WomenRatified
- Convention on the Rights of Persons with DisabilitiesRatified
- Convention on the Rights of the ChildRatified
- International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsNo action
International justice
- Rome Statute of the International Criminal CourtSigned, not ratified
Trade & governance
- United Nations Convention against CorruptionRatified
- United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized CrimeRatified
- United Nations Convention on the Law of the SeaSigned, not ratified
Voting record
Full voting record →The UAE votes with near-absolute consensus, supporting 92% of all General Assembly resolutions (4,743 yes votes of 5,156 total). Abstentions (273) are rare and dissenting no-votes extremely scarce (29 total), making the UAE a reliable consensus follower on global governance issues. The sole documented notable dissent in the provided record dates to 1974, when the UAE voted against a UN scale-of-assessments resolution supported by 94% of the Assembly—a clear outlier in an otherwise cooperative voting profile. This supermajority support pattern, combined with minimal abstentions, indicates the UAE privileges institutional harmony and alignment with broad UN consensus while reserving dissent for issues directly touching state sovereignty or assessment burden.
Notable dissents from consensus
Scale of assessments for the apportionment of the expenses of the United Nations : resolution / adopted by the General Assembly
1974-11-12 · voted N · 94% voted yes
Human development
Full HDI record →Human Development Index: 0.940 (Very High), ranked #15 globally in 2023.
Combines life expectancy, education, and income into one comparable score, 0 to 1. Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2025 — deterministic figures, not AI-generated.
1990–2023