Time to reset the United Nations

When we hear the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, say he is horrified about what is happening in Gaza, we realise that the UK is a busted flush. He has been uttering similar sentiments for quite a while, but he has not even had the temerity to stop the sale of weapons to Israel or to call out the Israeli Government for genocide. Unlike the former Supreme Court Judge, Lord Sumption, who made a methodical justification of Genocide in Gaza or the International Association of Genocide Scholars, who state that the death of 65,000 people during the 22-month-long war meets the legal definition laid out in the UN Convention on genocide. This follows similar statements by two Israeli human rights organisations.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has 15,000 staff in Palestine, has been prevented from providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, including medicines, since the second of March 2025. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Gutierrez, has made it clear that Israel is acting beyond its powers and that this is the first occasion that any country has suspended operations of the United Nations organisations. This raises the wider question about how the United Nations is able to make decisions and how it is perceived in the world in 2025. Things have changed dramatically since the arrival of Donald Trump as the president for the second time. He clearly has no time for the United Nations and has made it evident that he is the supreme power in determining what action should be taken in the world's trouble spots. 

This is made possible by the constitution of the United Nations, which established the Council of the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China as the supreme Council, which has veto rights to prevent particular actions. This may have been appropriate at the end of the Second World War when the United Nations was formed, but with 193 countries signed up to the United Nations charter (see below) and the growth of member nations over the years, the question has to be asked: why do these five countries have the ability to prevent actions from being taken? This has been to Israel's benefit, which is a member of the United Nations and receives unbridled support from the United States. Unlike Palestine, which has been refused entry, delegates are allowed only as observers. The United States is now refusing to let them enter the country, which is the administrative HQ of the UN. 

In many ways, this is the second occasion that the United States has scuppered a worldwide peacekeeping organisation. Previously, it was largely responsible for the demise of the League of Nations, which was established in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles following the First World War. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, was a key player in its formation but failed to gain ratification from the Republicans in the Senate. The thirty-two nations that joined the League of Nations, which was headquartered in Geneva, depended on member states to provide peacekeeping forces. These were difficult to mobilise without the resources of the United States, and the League of Nations was unable to prevent fascist regimes in Japan, Italy, and Germany violating its rules by invading Manchuria, Ethiopia and then exiting the League of Nations. The USSR had also invaded Finland. The major powers remaining, Great Britain and France, did not have the resources or the inclination to challenge and began to rearm as the  Second World War became inevitable.

It would appear that President Trump has no desire for the United States to facilitate action by the United Nations and has used its veto with increasing impunity.. It has withdrawn from the World Health Organisation, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and reduced foreign aid to UN agencies on the assertion that they are not in the United States' national interest.

Equally, Russia and China have used their veto to prevent UN interventions in countries that could be considered their satellites. Great Britain and France are there for their historical reasons, and until recently have tended to support the United States' lead. The United Nations has not reviewed its charter since 1973, since when the world has changed dramatically. There are currently 61 active conflicts, the most since 1946 and over 60,000 peacekeepers are deployed from 115 member states. In light of current conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and the withdrawal of involvement by the United States, several questions must be asked:

• Why is the United Nations still located in the United States? 
• Should it not be located in a more neutral and stable country, which is less concerned about its own power and more concerned about securing peace across the world? 
• Why should five countries have a veto? 
• Should it not be for the Security Council, currently 15 countries, to pass motions with a two-thirds majority?
• Should the composition of the Security Council be expanded to ten permanent members, with the additional 5 representations coming from South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania? Together with ten rotating members, this would create a Security Council of 20 members.
• Is there any reason to exclude Palestine from membership?

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
4. To be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.