The UN at 80: An Unhappy Anniversary

If it wants to stay relevant, the United Nations needs to focus more on its original purpose as a forum for conflict resolution rather than global policymaking.

On October 24, the United Nations celebrates its 80th anniversary. To many member nations, however, the 80-year-old world body is fading into costly ineffectiveness and irrelevance. Unsurprisingly, the resulting financial constraints have led Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to propose a retrenchment, restructuring, and sweeping cuts to the 2026 budget and staff.

The central challenge was summed up by President Donald Trump in his speech before the UN last month: “What is the purpose of the United Nations?”

The UN Charter identifies its intended purposes: to take collective measures to maintain international peace and security; to promote friendly relations among nations based on equal rights and self-determination; to promote cooperative efforts to solve international problems; to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; and to serve as a forum for addressing those common ends.

Unfortunately, the UN has not lived up to its founders’ lofty goals.

There have been hundreds of wars and significant conflicts since 1945. Yet the UN Security Council has only authorized the use of military force twice: to defend South Korea in 1950 and to compel the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait in 1990. Lesser actions to deploy peacekeepers or bless non-UN military operations have some successes, like Côte d’Ivoire, but also tragic failures like the genocide in Rwanda. Missions in places like South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo drag on for decades, costing billions while failing to deliver lasting stability.

Most glaringly, the UN is largely impotent in major crises like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, it was actively harmful in Gaza, rewarding terrorism and manipulating standards to declare a state of famine where normal rules would not support such a conclusion. Notably, one of the most consequential peace agreements in decades—the deal to end the conflict in Gaza and return Israeli civilians held hostage by Hamas—was a direct repudiation of UN efforts. There is a reason why the secretary-general was largely uninvolved in the ceasefire negotiation process.

The UN’s record on human rights is likewise deficient. Over the past decade, the UN General Assembly has condemned the United States more than it has Iran or North Korea. And Israel has suffered more condemnations than all other countries combined. Likewise, the UN Human Rights Council focuses its criticism disproportionately on Israel while never condemning China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, or the many other governments that regularly violate the rights and freedoms of their citizens.

 A key part of the problem is that, according to Freedom House, a majority of UN members are either “partly free” or “unfree.” Repeatedly, authoritarian governments have used the UN to shield each other from just scrutiny. Just last week, the UN General Assembly elected repressive governments in Angola, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, and Vietnam to the Human Rights Council. At the end of the day, the UN reflects its membership, and most members hold self-determination and liberty in low regard, irrespective of the UN Charter.

Scandals ranging from corruption to sexual misconduct have also plagued the UN and eroded trust. Even the UN’s humanitarian efforts, justifiably considered among the organization’s most valuable efforts, are marred by malfeasance, ineffectiveness, and complicity with terrorists.

No wonder 63 percent of Americans told Gallup that the UN was doing a poor job in trying to solve the problems it was created to manage.

For the United States, which provides roughly a quarter of the UN’s budget, the organization’s flaws are particularly galling. In the past, this would lead Republican and Democratic administrations to call for reforms, engage in diplomatic cajoling, and occasionally withhold funding. No longer.

Under President Trump, the UN is seeing a more confrontational approach. He has withdrawn from, sanctioned, or terminated funding for the Palestinian refugees organization UNRWA, the International Criminal Court, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Human Rights Council, the UN Population Fund, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the World Health Organization. His administration is conducting a review to determine if the United States should leave other organizations and treaties.

Some speculate that the US might leave the UN entirely, but that is unlikely. The UN does have its uses, particularly technical agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is critical in monitoring nuclear programs, or the International Civil Aviation Organization, which sets safety standards and procedures for international air travel. On the security side, the United States needs to stay in the UN Security Council if only to use its veto to stop resolutions that could harm Americans. The UN, for all its flaws, also remains a useful forum for hashing out international disputes.

These practical activities are among the least appreciated by the most visible advocates of the UN, but are the most useful from the American perspective.

The biggest champions of the organization want it to be a vehicle for global consensus on an ever-expanding, generally leftist agenda. This was the vision offered by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his Pact for the Future, which called for a huge development aid stimulus, increased climate finance, government censorship of misinformation and disinformation, and new rules and treaties on artificial intelligence, environmental concerns, autonomous weapons, and other matters.

On the opposite side is President Trump, who has called for the UN to return to its “core purposes” of preserving international peace and preventing conflict.

After 80 years, the United Nations is at a crossroads. Former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld noted that the “United Nations was not created to bring us to heaven, but to save us from hell.” The UN has lost this modesty. If it is to have a future, it must embrace America’s call for reform, refocus on its basic mandates, and abandon its self-indulgent and unrealizable utopian agenda.

 

*About the Author: Brett D. Schaefer

Brett D. Schaefer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on multilateral treaties, peacekeeping, and the United Nations and international organizations. Before joining AEI, Mr. Schaefer was the Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Previously, he was a member of the United Nations Committee on Contributions and an expert on the UN Task Force for the United States Institute of Peace. Mr. Schaefer also served as an assistant for International Criminal Court policy in the Department of Defense. Follow him on X @BrettDSchaefer.

 

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-un-at-80-an-unhappy-anniversary