How the UN Security Council Can Reinvent Itself
Seventy-seven years into its troubled existence, the United Nations Security Council confronts a consequential decision: Transform or die.
The choice was vividly illustrated in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine, when Russia’s United Nations ambassador served as the president of the Security Council even as his country committed a flagrant violation of the UN’s founding principles. That spectacle was soon followed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggesting that entities such as the Security Council are defunct and proposing a new “union of responsible countries” (dubbed “U-24”) to provide assistance within 24 hours of a country suffering an attack, natural disaster, or health crisis. Sure, he was short on details. But it was still a stunning suggestion to make in the throes of war—like proposing a rewrite of fire regulations while your house is burning down. Being failed by international institutions brings a certain clarity about their deficiencies and the urgent need to address them.
Even before Russia’s invasion, a deeply divided Security Council was struggling to act on many of today’s defining challenges, including mass human-rights violations and nontraditional security threats such as climate change and public-health crises. The most powerful body of the most global organization has been largely bypassing the world’s most pressing problems.
