- NEW: Obama's speech will invoke Chris Stevens
- NEW: It will also touch on Iran
- Afghan President Hamid Karzai is also expected to address delegates
- On Monday the U.N. General Assembly convened a high-level meeting on the rule of law
United Nations (CNN) -- World leaders will again take up a host of pressing humanitarian issues, including poverty, global warming and the prospect of renewed conflicts in sub Saharan Africa, when the United Nations General Assembly Debate officially opens in New York Tuesday morning.
But violence in the Middle East and an 18-month civil war raging in Syria are expected to remain center stage, particularly after international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Monday appealed for definitive change in the region.
"Reform is not enough anymore," he said of the continued violence gripping Syria. "What is needed is change."
Tuesday's highly anticipated speakers include Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has been critical of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad though largely unable to stem the bloodshed, and U.S. President Barack Obama, who remains entrenched in a hard fought re-election campaign.
Obama's speech, his fourth at the General Assembly podium, will invoke slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and the deadly violence that has rocked many parts of the Muslim world after protesters railed against an anti-Islam film produced in the United States.
Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, earlier this month following a demonstration against the film.
"There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents," Obama will say, according to excerpts of his speech made available. "There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy. There is no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction in Pakistan."
Obama will add that the attacks is an assault on "the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded."
"Today, we must affirm that our future will be determined by people like Chris Stevens, and not by his killers," he will say. "Today, we must declare that this violence and intolerance has no place among our United Nations."
Obama's speech will also touch on Iran, saying that while United States wants to resolve the impasse over Iran's nuclear program, it will do "what we must" to prevent the Persian state from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"Make no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained," he will say. "It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy. It risks triggering a nuclear-arms race in the region, and the unraveling of the non-proliferation treaty."
Obama's speech comes on the heels of a series of confrontational statements by the Iranian president, who declared Monday that Israel had no roots in the Middle East.
U.S. national security spokesman Thomas Vietor called the comments "disgusting, offensive and outrageous," and that they "underscore again why America's commitment to the security of Israel must be unshakeable, and why the world must hold Iran accountable for its utter failure to meet its obligations."
While Obama is speaking in front of an international crowd, his speech Tuesday will also largely target a domestic audience, which will decide in November whether he gets another chance at the presidency.
French President Francois Hollande is scheduled to take the lectern later that afternoon and is expected to address a worsening crisis in the Sahel, where a deadly mix of drought, famine and Islamic militancy have plagued the North Africa region.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is also expected to address delegates. He arrived last year but didn't give his speech, returning early after former president and peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated.
On Monday, the U.N. General Assembly convened a high-level meeting on the rule of law which sought to highlight the importance of existing international treaties as well as the International Criminal Court.
"The wider body of international law developed at the United Nations gives the international community a basis to cooperate and peacefully resolve conflicts and the means to ensure that there is no relapse of fighting," said Secretary Ban.
During a separate U.N. meeting on Haiti, which included actor-activist Sean Penn, Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe called on aid groups to do more to assist the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.
"Haiti has no social protection system," the prime minister said, noting that part of the problem stemmed from a lack of government services outside the capital of Port-au-Prince.
More than two years after the 2010 quake forced an estimated 1.5 million residents into makeshift housing, Lamothe said about 400,000 of them are still waiting to be relocated.
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