‘Never more precarious’: the UN turns 80

The United Nations has 193 members and an annual general budget of $3.72 billion. Its peacekeeping forces have 60,000 military personnel stationed around the globe. However, as it marks its 80th birthday, the organisation increasingly seems like a spectator in a might-is-right world.

How was the UN created?

Initial planning began in 1939, when it became clear that the League of Nations had failed in its job of preventing another world war. The term “united nations” was first used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a 1942 declaration by 26 nations that pledged to fight against the Axis powers.

The UN’s basic shape was hammered out by “the Big Four” – the US, the USSR, Britain and China – at a conference in Washington DC in late 1944 – and agreed by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin at the Yalta Conference a few months later. In April 1945, representatives of 50 nations (and 80% of the world’s population), met at the United Nations Conference on International Organisation in San Francisco to draft and ratify the Charter. Pledging to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, it came into force on 24 October 1945.

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What does it look like today?

The UN asserts that it is “neither a supra-state nor a government of governments”. Rather, it sees itself as a forum for international dialogue and cooperation. Its Charter sets out four main purposes, from maintaining peace and security to promoting social and cultural cooperation.

It retains the basic structure agreed at Yalta. The General Assembly is “the world’s parliament”, where each nation can discuss important issues and vote on equal terms. But the real power lies with the Security Council, which is designed to take “prompt and effective action” in response to any emergency; it can order sanctions, blockades and military action to uphold decisions. It is comprised of the “Big Five” permanent members (the “Big Four” plus France), each of which has the power of veto, and ten temporary members (which do not).

What has the UN achieved?

It has codified a body of international laws and forged the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It played an important part in decolonisation – Article 1 of the Charter recognised the right of self-determination – and is credited with brokering more than 170 peace settlements; its peacekeeping forces have helped end conflicts from Colombia to Sierra Leone, Burundi to Cambodia.

The WHO, a UN agency, played a leading role in the eradication of smallpox in 1980, a disease that had killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone. It has helped broker international deals, such as the 1970 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty and the Paris Climate Accords. No nation has used a nuclear bomb since 1945; to its supporters, the UN is still the best defence against world war.

Have there been failures, too?

Certainly. The UN’s nadir arguably came in 1994, when peacekeepers in Rwanda failed to prevent the genocide of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. A year later, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serbs while Dutch peacekeeping troops stood by helplessly. The UN has also been plagued by allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers, known as “Blue Berets”. More fundamentally, though, the UN’s own structures – primarily the Security Council veto – often prevent action.

How does the veto cause problems?

The veto ensured the participation of the major powers in the UN (the US had never joined the League of Nations). But the flipside is that the Security Council has been paralysed by vetoes. In total, more than 320 resolutions have been vetoed – most often by Russia (or the USSR) and the US, though China is now a frequent blocker. The USSR, for instance, vetoed objections to its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan; the US has vetoed nearly 50 resolutions on Israel alone. British, French and US vetoes stopped the UN condemning Apartheid in South Africa.

Indeed, arguably the Security Council has worked only as originally intended twice. Once was when South Korea was invaded by the North in 1950 – and then only because the USSR was boycotting the UN, and China had yet to take the Security Council seat from the Republic of China (Taiwan). The second was after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990, at a brief high-point in East-West relations. But though the UN has always wrestled with such structural flaws, it is now facing difficulties of potentially even greater magnitude.

Why is it in difficulties now?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made a mockery of the principle of respect for national borders. Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza proceeded despite resolutions demanding a ceasefire from the General Assembly, and thunderous condemnations from the UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The UN has seemed unable even to intervene in wars in which great powers are not involved, such as Sudan’s civil war.

Developing countries regard it as being biased in favour of the West, while Brazil, Russia, India and China are promoting the Brics economic club as a potential rival. And perhaps most damagingly, US conservatives regard the UN as both irrelevant and too partial to progressive causes.

Why is that so damaging?

Because the UN has always relied so heavily on American power and money (it funds over 20% of the UN’s regular budget). The Trump administration is now planning a more than 80% reduction in UN funding next year. The US is already withdrawing from the Paris climate deal, the WHO and Unesco, among other organisations. Republican lawmakers have introduced more than 20 pieces of legislation targeting the UN, and US participation in it.

Though it retains considerable global legitimacy, and its programmes still perform crucial roles around the world, the UN is – financially and operationally – in deep crisis.