The United Nations was born in sin. The sin of Empire. The sin of colonialism. The sin of racism. It was born on the ashes of Hitler and the Third Reich. At its birth, the UN professed sovereign equality among states, large and small.
It spoke with eloquence about ending the scourge of war and creating a world governed by human rights and the rule of law. It promised a world without penury and want. It called for a globe with equal dignity for all people regardless of colour, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and domicile. Its Charter was in many respects music to the ears of long-suffering demographics. Except much of what the UN mesmerised the world with was highfalutin rhetoric.
Beyond the sappy language and soaring evocations lay a cruel reality. The UN established the Security Council of 15 of its number, but only five of them really mattered. Those five – given the irrevocable title of permanent members – were the mightiest of the victors of the so-called World War II.
They each were endowed with veto power over anything and anyone in the UN system. In other words, they were bequeathed with legal impunity.
Any single one of them could stop or render nugatory any decision of the UN Security Council, the body that sits at the pinnacle of the entire UN system. The five – United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom, and France – hold all legal power.
The Security Council sits atop the most populous and democratic body in the system – the General Assembly. Today, the UN has 193 member states. But the UNGA is subordinate to the UNSC.
That’s the most congenital defect of the system. And it’s the source of the illegitimacy and obsolescence of the UN. It’s the reason the world body has drifted into irrelevance and utter impotence.
Born with high hopes in the aftermath of the cruelest war over the spoils of the world, the UN has become victim to the structures of power and subordination it created at its inception. On October 24 this year, the UN will be 81 years old. Ironically, it will be as far from its goals as it has ever been since 1945.
The UN is in the middle of its elections for the next Secretary-General, its chief executive. The new UN chief will be seated on January 1, 2027.
At no time since its founding has the UN been weaker than it is today. Today, the world body is a bystander in global affairs as its most cherished principles are violated with impunity in word and deed.
The situation has become so pathetic that the UN Secretary-General is virtually invisible. His bully pulpit long gone. If I didn’t know SG Antonio Guterres, or I didn’t teach international law, I could be forgiven for not knowing his name.
That’s how low the UN has sunk. Benjamin Netanyahu, the PM of Israel, is far better known and more powerful than Mr. Guterres.
How did matters get so bad? Recall the demise of the League of Nations, the predecessor to the UN. Long before its mercy killing, the League had become a laughing stock. It failed to bring powerful states to heel and to create a new order based on sovereign equality and justice. It seems that unless emergency responders rescue the UN from its deathbed, it will meet a similar fate.
I think it matters not who the new SG will be so long as global powers continue to engage in rogue behaviour and act with impunity, even to the basic rules of civility and good order. In my view, the most basic rules of human civilisation are now irrelevant to global powers.
The minimal gains made by the UN to combat the most blatant uses of power both inside countries and on the global stage have been discarded. Take a few cases. In the Middle East, Israel has gone completely off the rails. It has killed thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children so callously and casually that no words can describe its barbarism and brutality.
In Ukraine, Russia has engaged in indiscriminate gross violations of all laws of war. In Iran, the US has carried out the most punishing attacks without a care about civilians and basic infrastructure. Iran itself has brutally suppressed its people with a ferocity that defies description. In all these senseless wars, the UN is non-existent.
Today, the UN stands at an inflection point. If it doesn’t reimagine its role with its membership and devote the tenure of the next Secretary-General to fundamentally re-engineer its foundational principles and structures, it will drift into total irrelevance and, like the League before it, die an ignominious death. While the UN or a body like it is necessary – nay, essential – we do not need a body that is comatose. We had better bury it and establish a more relevant institution.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York; @makaumutua.
