The United Nations in the Future: Will it Remain Effective or Need Radical Reform? This question has become increasingly urgent as the world’s premier international organization approaches its 80th anniversary. Founded in the aftermath of World War II to maintain international peace and security, the UN today faces unprecedented challenges that test its foundational structures and operational effectiveness. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres observed in February 2024, “We are struggling to move into a multipolar world, but in a way that is not yet clear: in a way that tends to be chaotic and in which power relations are not clear… it is clear that the multilateral governance mechanisms that we have today are indeed outdated, are indeed unfair and are indeed ineffective”1. This growing recognition of institutional inadequacy has spurred renewed calls for reform, particularly of the Security Council, alongside initiatives like the Pact for the Future and the Summit of the Future held in September 2024. These developments raise profound questions about whether incremental changes can sustain the UN’s relevance or whether more radical transformation is necessary for the organization to fulfill its purposes in an increasingly complex global landscape.
Historical Evolution and Current Challenges
The United Nations has undergone significant evolution since its founding in 1945 with 51 member states. What began primarily as a mechanism to prevent another world war has expanded into a comprehensive system addressing development, human rights, environmental protection, and humanitarian assistance alongside its original peace and security mandate. This evolutionary process has produced notable successes but also revealed persistent structural limitations that increasingly hamper the organization’s effectiveness.
The UN’s achievements should not be underestimated. Its humanitarian agencies provide essential support to millions worldwide, with the World Food Program delivering assistance to over 80 million people and various UN entities aiding nearly 69 million displaced persons. UN vaccination programs reach approximately 45% of the world’s children, saving an estimated 2-3 million lives annually from preventable diseases2. Beyond direct assistance, the organization has established the first comprehensive framework for human rights law through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent covenants, creating international standards that have influenced constitutions and legislation worldwide.
However, these accomplishments exist alongside significant shortcomings, particularly in the UN’s primary mandate of maintaining international peace and security. The Security Council, designed to be the organization’s most powerful body, frequently finds itself paralyzed by the veto power of its five permanent members (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States). The Council’s inability to take meaningful action on conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza exemplifies this dysfunction, with vetoes preventing resolutions that might address these crises effectively. As Georgia’s representative noted in November 2022, “unfolding events have made it clear that the Council is failing to live up to its raison d’être – the maintenance of international peace and security, with veto power reform particularly urgent”3.
This paralysis reflects a fundamental tension between the UN’s universalist principles and the power politics institutionalized in its structure. The veto privilege granted to the P5 contradicts basic democratic and equitable governance principles, leading Iran’s representative to emphasize that “the veto is not a right, but rather a privilege unfairly granted to some Member States in violation of the United Nations Charter”3. When permanent members can block action on conflicts they themselves initiated, as Ukraine noted regarding Russia, the Council’s impartiality and effectiveness are fundamentally compromised.
The Changing Global Order and Its Implications
The United Nations operates today in a geopolitical environment drastically different from that of its founding. The bipolar Cold War order has given way first to brief American unipolarity and now to an emerging multipolarity characterized by greater diffusion of power and competing visions of global governance. According to the Munich Security Report 2025, “Today’s international system shows elements of unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity, and nonpolarity. Yet an ongoing power shift toward a greater number of states vying for influence is clearly discernible,” highlighting the rising influence of BRICS nations and regional powers such as Türkiye and Qatar4.
This multipolarization creates both opportunities and challenges for the United Nations. On one hand, the decline of Western hegemony could potentially create space for more inclusive global governance that better reflects the full diversity of the international community. On the other hand, intensifying great power competition complicates consensus-building and potentially undermines the normative foundations of the UN system. The report notes that political and economic liberalism, which shaped the unipolar post-Cold War order, faces increasing challenges from alternative governance models and value systems4. This ideological contestation makes it more difficult to maintain agreement on fundamental principles and appropriate responses to global challenges.
Public attitudes toward this transition vary significantly across regions. A Munich Security Conference survey reveals that citizens in Western industrialized nations generally express concern about the emerging multipolar order, fearing increased disorder and conflict. Conversely, majorities in BRICS countries view the shift optimistically, seeing it as a path toward a fairer, more just, and peaceful world4. These divergent perspectives complicate efforts to build consensus on UN reform and future direction.
The changing power dynamics also call into question the continued legitimacy of existing UN structures, particularly the Security Council’s permanent membership. The P5 reflects the power realities of 1945 rather than today’s world, excluding major powers like India, Brazil, Japan, and Germany while overrepresenting Europe. This anachronistic composition undermines the Council’s legitimacy and representativeness in contemporary international relations, contributing to perceptions that fundamental reform is necessary for the UN to maintain its central role in global governance.
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Current Reform Initiatives and Their Limitations
Recognizing these challenges, the United Nations has undertaken several significant reform efforts in recent years. In 2019, the UN Secretariat began implementing systemic changes centered around three pillars: repositioning the UN development system to better advance the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals; pursuing management reform to create a more efficient organization; and restructuring peace and security operations to better meet contemporary challenges8.
These reforms aim to make the UN “nimbler, less bureaucratic, more transparent and accountable, and more decentralized and effective”8. A key element involves transforming the role of Resident Coordinators, who lead UN work in individual countries, by moving their reporting line from the UN Development Programme to the UN Secretariat. This creates “a direct accountability link between the UN in New York and leadership on the ground”8, potentially improving coordination and effectiveness in field operations.
More recently, the Summit of the Future in September 2024 produced several important initiatives, including the Pact for the Future, which addresses Security Council reform in its chapter on global governance. The reform process is linked to the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), with input to the Pact due by the end of June 20241. This deadline intensified diplomatic engagement across various member state groupings, though concrete outcomes remain uncertain.
The Summit also adopted the Global Digital Compact (GDC), described as “the first framework for global governance of digital technology”5. Led by Sweden and Zambia, this groundbreaking agreement establishes principles and commitments across digital issues from human rights and gender equality to environmental sustainability and governance of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. The GDC includes several innovative proposals, including “establishing a scientific panel, a global policy dialogue on AI and a capacity-building fund”5, representing an important expansion of the UN’s governance role into frontier technological challenges.
Additionally, under the heading “Transforming Global Governance,” the Pact contains measures to reform the international financial architecture, a priority for developing countries that feel marginalized in current institutional frameworks. These include a new biennial summit to strengthen links between the UN and international financial institutions, commitments on tax cooperation (including exploration of a “billionaire tax”), reaffirmation of Official Development Assistance targets, and a review of the sovereign debt architecture6.
While these initiatives represent meaningful progress, they generally avoid the most contentious reform issues, particularly Security Council restructuring and veto limitations. The fundamental challenge remains that Charter amendments require unanimous P5 approval, creating a situation where “the P5 veto paralyzes the council and necessitates reform, but the same P5 countries can prevent the amendments to the charter that would be needed to address that paralysis”7. This paradox explains why decades of reform discussions have produced relatively limited changes to the UN’s core structures and decision-making processes.
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Reform Without Charter Amendment: A Pragmatic Path Forward
Given the difficulties of formal Charter amendment, increasing attention has focused on what Carnegie Endowment scholars call “nonamendment reform” changes achieved through evolving interpretations and understandings of the Charter rather than formal amendments. Unlike Charter amendments, these approaches “are not hostage to the P5 veto, and they can be used to respond to global crises when the Security Council is prevented from acting”7.
Historical precedents demonstrate the potential of nonamendment reform. The “Uniting for Peace” resolution of 1950 empowered the General Assembly to make recommendations on international peace and security matters when the Security Council fails to act due to lack of P5 unanimity. This creative interpretation of the Charter’s provisions enabled UN action during crises despite Security Council paralysis. Similarly, peacekeeping operations evolved without explicit Charter authorization through flexible interpretation of existing provisions.
Contemporary nonamendment reforms could include revitalizing the Uniting for Peace mechanism, expanding the role of the Peacebuilding Commission, enhancing regional arrangements under Chapter VIII of the Charter, strengthening the Secretary-General’s good offices function, and developing new consultative mechanisms to improve Council working methods. While these approaches cannot eliminate the P5 veto, they can mitigate its paralyzing effects and enhance the UN’s overall effectiveness.
As General Assembly President Dennis Francis noted, “When the [Security] Council is unable to act, it is both desirable and necessary under the prevailing rules that the General Assembly steps forward – lest we risk further questions on the relevance and the deepening casting of aspersions on the efficacy of our organization itself”1. This recognition of the need for institutional adaptation within existing Charter constraints offers a pragmatic path forward when more ambitious reforms remain blocked.
Security Council Reform: The Central Challenge
While nonamendment reforms offer pragmatic improvements, the most persistent reform demands focus on the Security Council’s composition and veto power. Current debates emphasize the need for greater representation of developing countries, particularly from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. As Iran’s representative noted, the majority of Council members are Western nations, undermining its claim to represent global diversity3.
Reform proposals range from modest expansion of non-permanent seats to comprehensive restructuring including new permanent members (with or without veto rights) and intermediate categories of membership. The African Union has consistently advocated for permanent African representation, arguing that the continent’s exclusion from permanent membership perpetuates historical injustices and undermines the Council’s legitimacy in addressing African security challenges.
The veto power generates particularly intense criticism. Georgia’s representative described veto reform as “particularly urgent,” citing failed attempts to pass resolutions addressing Russian aggression against Ukraine3. Ukraine emphasized the inappropriate situation where a permanent member can “exercise veto during consideration of a conflict it instigated”3. This highlights how veto power can shield permanent members from accountability for their own actions, fundamentally undermining the Council’s impartiality and effectiveness.
Reform proposals regarding the veto include voluntary restraint, especially in cases of mass atrocities; requiring multiple permanent members to exercise veto jointly; or instituting an override mechanism requiring a supermajority in the General Assembly. While these ideas have gained significant support, they face resistance from current permanent members reluctant to dilute their privileged status. The ongoing IGN process has for years discussed these proposals without achieving breakthrough consensus, illustrating the difficulty of reforming entrenched power structures within international organizations.
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Financial and Administrative Reforms: Enhancing Operational Effectiveness
Beyond structural governance changes, the UN’s effectiveness depends significantly on adequate, predictable funding and efficient administrative systems. The organization faces chronic financial challenges, with contribution shortfalls and heavy reliance on voluntary funding creating operational instability and potentially compromising independence. Administrative processes often remain bureaucratic and slow-moving despite ongoing reform efforts, hampering rapid response to emerging crises.
The Pact for the Future addresses some of these challenges through provisions on international financial architecture reform, including a new biennial summit to strengthen links between the UN and international financial institutions, commitments on tax cooperation, and reaffirmation of Official Development Assistance targets6. However, implementation remains uncertain, and the cautious language (“noted with appreciation” rather than stronger endorsement of the biennial summit) suggests continued resistance to fundamental changes in global economic governance.
Administrative reforms implemented since 2019 aim to make the organization “nimbler, less bureaucratic, more transparent and accountable”8, with particular emphasis on streamlining processes, enhancing gender parity, and strengthening field operations. The repositioning of Resident Coordinators under the UN Secretariat represents a positive step toward better field coordination, creating clearer accountability structures between headquarters and country-level activities8. However, the UN system’s fragmentation across numerous specialized agencies, programs, and offices with sometimes overlapping mandates continues to create coordination challenges that impede unified action.
Given resource constraints, future reforms will need to prioritize strategic focus, operational agility, and results-based management alongside efforts to secure more stable and adequate funding. Technological innovation offers opportunities to enhance efficiency, as demonstrated by the Global Digital Compact’s recognition of digital tools for sustainable development5. However, realizing these gains requires overcoming institutional inertia and resistance to change that often characterizes large bureaucratic organizations.
The Technological Frontier: New Governance Challenges and Opportunities
The rapid pace of technological change presents both unprecedented challenges and potential opportunities for the United Nations system. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing raise novel governance questions that transcend national borders and require coordinated global responses. The UN’s ability to develop effective governance frameworks for these technologies will significantly influence its future relevance in global affairs.
The Global Digital Compact represents an important step forward, establishing “the first framework for global governance of digital technology”5. Adopted at the Summit of the Future in September 2024, the GDC addresses a wide range of digital issues from human rights and gender equality to environmental sustainability and governance of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. The framework aims “to harness the power of technology, support implementation of the SDGs and foster an open, safe, secure and sustainable digital future”5.
The GDC includes several groundbreaking proposals in the field of AI governance, including “establishing a scientific panel, a global policy dialogue on AI and a capacity-building fund”5. These initiatives could provide essential platforms for multistakeholder cooperation on managing both the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence development. The UN’s universal membership and legitimacy position it well to host such dialogues, potentially bridging divides between different national regulatory approaches and technical communities.
More broadly, digital technologies offer tools to enhance the UN’s operational effectiveness through improved data collection, analysis, and implementation monitoring. Remote sensing technologies enable better environmental monitoring and early warning systems for disaster response. Digital platforms can increase transparency in UN operations and facilitate broader stakeholder engagement beyond traditional diplomatic channels. Leveraging these technological opportunities while addressing the governance challenges they present will be a critical aspect of the UN’s future effectiveness.
Future Scenarios: From Incremental Adaptation to Radical Transformation
Looking ahead, several distinct scenarios emerge for the UN’s evolution:
The status quo scenario involves continued incremental adaptation through management reforms, working method improvements, and expanded activities in emerging areas like digital governance. Core power structures remain largely unchanged due to P5 resistance to Charter amendments. The organization maintains relevance in humanitarian affairs, development, and norm-setting, but struggles with major security challenges when great power interests conflict. This path seems likely given historical patterns and high barriers to fundamental reform, but risks diminishing legitimacy and effectiveness as structures increasingly diverge from contemporary power realities.
A more ambitious reform scenario envisions substantial changes achievable without Charter amendment, including significant Security Council working method innovations, revitalized use of the Uniting for Peace mechanism, expanded roles for the Peacebuilding Commission and regional organizations, and comprehensive management reforms enhancing coordination across the UN system. This scenario requires sustained political will from key member states and skillful leadership from the Secretary-General to overcome resistance to change, but offers potential for significant effectiveness improvements while avoiding the prohibitive hurdles of formal Charter amendment.
The most transformative scenario contemplates fundamental restructuring of the UN system, including Security Council expansion with new permanent members, veto limitations or elimination, independent financing mechanisms, consolidated agencies with clearer mandates, and strengthened enforcement capabilities. This would require Charter amendments and thus unanimity among the P5—a formidable political challenge. While unlikely in the near term, significant geopolitical shocks or catastrophic failures of the existing system could potentially create openings for more radical reform, as historical precedent suggests major institutional transformations often follow systemic crises that delegitimize existing arrangements.
A pessimistic scenario involves the UN’s gradual marginalization as states increasingly bypass the organization to address global challenges through alternative forums like the G20, regional organizations, or issue-specific coalitions. Security Council paralysis, funding shortfalls, and bureaucratic inefficiencies accelerate this decline, potentially leaving the UN focused primarily on humanitarian and development activities while core security and economic governance shifts elsewhere. This scenario becomes increasingly plausible in the context of growing multipolarity, declining consensus on fundamental norms, and proliferation of alternative governance mechanisms.
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Conclusion: Balancing Pragmatism and Aspiration for a More Effective United Nations
The question of whether the United Nations will remain effective or require radical reform has no simple answer. Different aspects of the UN system show varying capacities for adaptation, with some areas demonstrating impressive innovation while others remain constrained by outdated structures and approaches. The evidence suggests that while comprehensive reform of core UN structures, particularly the Security Council, remains desirable, political realities make Charter amendment unlikely in the near term. Consequently, the most promising path forward combines ambitious “nonamendment reforms” within existing legal constraints with patient coalition-building for longer-term structural changes as geopolitical conditions permit.
Recent developments offer both encouraging signs and cautionary warnings. Initiatives like the Global Digital Compact demonstrate the UN’s capacity to address emerging challenges through innovative approaches5. The ongoing implementation of management, development, and peace and security reforms shows commitment to greater efficiency and effectiveness8. Conversely, Security Council paralysis regarding Ukraine and Gaza underscores the fundamental limitations imposed by outdated power structures and the P5 veto3.
Despite its imperfections, the United Nations remains an irreplaceable forum for global cooperation. No alternative institution possesses comparable universality, legitimacy, or operational capacity across such diverse domains. The organization’s future effectiveness will depend on its ability to adapt to multipolarity, incorporate diverse stakeholders, streamline operations, and develop creative solutions to veto paralysis while maintaining its fundamental commitment to the principles articulated in the UN Charter.
As Secretary-General Guterres observed, “there must be a serious effort of reform in order to make sure that we are able to build together a multilateral system that is more inclusive, more equitable but also more comprehensive and effective in addressing the challenges of our time”1. Achieving this vision requires sustained commitment from member states, civil society, and UN leadership to balance pragmatic improvements with aspirational goals for a more just and effective global governance system a balance that will ultimately determine whether the United Nations remains a relevant and effective institution in the decades ahead.
References:
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