If the United Nations was to be redesigned from scratch to fit the modern world, what would it look like?
It certainly wouldn’t have as its five veto-wielding permanent security council members China, the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom. There is a case to be made for the first three, but the presence of two relatively small European countries in the absence of any representation for Africa or South America is eccentric.
The clue to why the UN is designed in this way is the year of its foundation: 1945. This is a post-second World War creation, with the laudable aim of preventing a repeat of such a disastrous global conflict, but which has anachronistically frozen in time the victors of the moment.
Niall McCann, who recently left the United Nations Development Programme after more than a decade working throughout the UN system in positions in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, suggests a reform to a regional model.
Hungarian leader Viktor Orban gives insight to his ‘lonely’ worldview
The Irish Times view on Trump and Ukraine: Change of course is ahead
US pledges to send as much aid as possible to Ukraine before Trump becomes president
Ukraine facing ‘50,000 Russian troops’ in border area as North Korea ratifies defence pact with Moscow
Europe would have one permanent seat on the security council, which would rotate between its members in a similar way to the rotating presidency of the European Union. Sweden could represent Europe one year, Greece the next.
[ Russia and Ukraine prepare for the rigours of a winter warOpens in new window ]
There would be a new permanent seat for the African Union; for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands; for the Caribbean; for South American countries, and so on. Large countries such as Turkey or Pakistan that might not neatly fit into such a regional grouping could be included through additional rotating seats that would allow them to be represented more frequently than they currently are.
McCann describes it as “the obvious solution” in terms of expanding representation. It would more logically represent the world as it is, and give the UN the wider perspective it needs to allow it to address the challenges of the current day.
The UN would nevertheless remain hobbled by its second World War hangover unless this reform came along with a removal of the core element of the five permanent member states’ power: their veto. Currently, any of the permanent five can block any “substantive” resolution to which they are opposed.
'I don’t see a scenario where Russia would have been shooting down Australian jets or Brazilian jets or attacking UN peacekeeping soldiers operating under a UN mandate'
Ireland has used its current two-year term as an elected member of the security council to demand an end to the veto system. It was already slammed as “outdated” by the Irish UN mission back in 2021, after a resolution to deem climate change a threat to global peace and security that was brought forward by Ireland and Niger and co-sponsored by 113 member states was blocked by Russia.
But this call grew in force after Russia neatly demonstrated its flaws, by using its veto on February 25th this year to defend its own act of aggression against Ukraine. It blocked a resolution that would have called for an immediate stop to the invasion and withdrawal of Russian troops.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly last month, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the veto was used to “thwart the will of the majority of member states” and looked forward to a day when it would be “an anachronism that has long ceased to exist”.
Without the veto system, Ukraine would have been able to ask the security council to send a peacekeeping mission as soon as Russian troops began massing on its borders. McCann believes this would have been approved by a majority of member states, and that it probably would have prevented the war.
“I don’t see a scenario where Russia would have been shooting down Australian jets or Brazilian jets or attacking UN peacekeeping soldiers operating under a UN mandate,” he argues.
As it stands, the veto “hangs over” the workings of the UN, he says, preventing the council from “doing its main job, the main reason it was set up, which was to prevent conflicts like this starting in the first place”.
Unfortunately, getting rid of the veto requires its five holders to agree to give it up. They have a veto – on the veto.
Yet the price of refusing to reform is obsolescence of the UN itself, McCann argues.
“If something isn’t done to deal with the complete inertia in the security council to be able to prevent conflicts like Ukraine, then the UN could go the route of the League of Nations,” he warns, referring to the previous intergovernmental organisation that collapsed after it failed to prevent the second World War and lost the support of its member states.
“The veto simply has to go.”