The United Nations celebrated its 80th anniversary this week. The spurt of articles seeking to project the organisation as the only panacea for mankind betrayed a sense of anxiety about its future. Ban Ki-Moon, former UN Secretary General, reminisced about how the organisation saved the lives of his family during the Korean War of 1950-53 and grimly reminded that while celebrating its accomplishments, “we must also ensure it is fit for purpose in the 21st century”. Reform of the multilateral system is urgent and overdue, he cautioned.
This anxiety is justified. Ban Ki-Moon talked about how the newly formed multilateral body successfully navigated the Korean War. However, this week, October 29 to be precise, marked another important event in the UN’s history. As the organisation turned 11 in 1956, the Suez Canal crisis erupted. Two permanent members — the UK and France — together with Israel, unilaterally attacked Egypt. From Suez seven decades ago to Gaza and Ukraine today, the journey of the UN has been anything but glorious. Apologists may argue that had the UN not been there, millions would have perished of hunger and disease in Africa and elsewhere. But they don’t talk about those millions who died in horrible wars in Sudan, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Iraq and Gaza, sometimes in the very presence of the UN Security Forces (UNSF). The UN was created primarily to end wars and maintain peace and security, not to feed the hungry while looking the other way as conflicts ravaged nations.
There were limited successes during the unipolar years of the 1990s when the world became free from the Cold War tensions. During 1992-95, in war-ravaged Bosnia and Herzegovina, a former Yugoslav republic, UN Peacekeepers were deployed, and food and medicine supplies were organised in the conflict areas. The UN also constituted the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in May 1993 and prosecuted those involved in the ethnic conflict, including former Bosnian President Slobodan Milosevic. Three years later, when ethnic Albanians and Serbs were in a conflict in 1998-99, the UN deployed peacekeepers and secured a final settlement and the recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation. Another important, although short-lived, success during that period was to bring the North Korean leadership to agree to the freezing of nuclear proliferation in November 1994.
The downward slide of the UN in the new century began with the unilateral invasion of Iraq by the US and its allies in 2003. As the UN continued to slide, demands for its reform grew louder on the one hand, while leaders of important countries began showing less interest in its affairs on the other. Only 43 heads of government attended this year’s session. Xi Jinping, the most important world leader after the US leadership, and Vladimir Putin attended the UNGA only once in the last 10 years. Alarmed by the situation, Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned world leaders at a special session held in September 2023 that “it’s reform or rupture”.
Tragically, those calling for reform have no clue about what reform is possible. The UN was created on a fundamentally flawed foundation. 193 nations enjoy democratic equality of “one nation — one vote”. At the same time, an undemocratic veto system was also created by which five nations became “more equal” than others. Both fed on each other and rendered the body ineffective.
Some consider expansion of permanent membership from five to 10 or more as an important reform, while others argue that the veto system should go. Both seem untenable. Firstly, the veto system became necessary precisely because all 193 member countries got equal voting rights. Ironically, a good number of those countries are autocracies that do not give voting rights to their own citizens. Anticipating the possibility of a few countries ganging up against others to pass unreasonable resolutions, five big countries were made the conscience-keepers through a veto. Although undemocratic, it helped prevent the UN from being misused through brute majority. Countries like India and Israel would have faced humiliating situations on issues like Kashmir and Palestine in the absence of the veto. Given this dilemma, if the veto has to be done away with, the entire voting structure of the UN itself needs to change.
Frankly, the UN is beyond reform. Its structure is such that countries that do not accord human rights to their citizens sit on human rights committees, and those that oppress women occupy women’s rights committees. Russia used a veto 161 times, while the US used it 95 times. On the other hand, interest groups in the UN forced at least eight emergency sessions on Palestine, but not even one on Sudan, Cambodia, Bosnia or Rwanda.
The League of Nations, the predecessor of the UN, faced a similar situation during the 1930s. Japan and Germany quit the body, and the UK and France went ahead with their unilateral policies. The US, which created the body, never joined it. Its annual meetings ceased to take place after 1939. As the UN was formally created in June 1945 after World War II, the League leadership met one last time in Geneva in April 1946. “The League is dead. Long live the United Nations”, exclaimed Viscount Robert Cecil.
It is time now to think on similar lines about the UN. When the League became dysfunctional, two statesmen — Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill — came forward with the Atlantic Charter in 1941 to address the new global reality, leading to the creation of the UN. As the world enters the phase of multipolarity, we need such statesmen to build a new multilateralism, not just the daydreams about “UN reform”.
The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP
As the world enters the phase of multipolarity, we need such statesmen to build a new multilateralism, not just the daydreams about “UN reform”. 
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