The UN and the myth of war avoided

This year, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of the United Nations. In this regard, UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized one of the most frequently repeated ideas about the organization: "We can draw a direct line between the creation of the UN and the prevention of a third world war." This positive and comforting phrase positions the UN as the brake on the escalation of global armed conflict. However, this narrative, while partially true, conceals several dangerously uncomfortable and ignored realities. What does it mean to "avoid a third world war" in a world where millions have died and continue to die in prolonged wars, genocides, famines, and illegal occupations? How has the UN fulfilled its mandate, enshrined in its preamble, "to save future generations from the scourge of war," when wars, deaths, and suffering are repeated under its inaction, impotence, and complicity.

The multiplication of wars

It is true that since 1945, the world has not again experienced an all-out war between the great powers; however, it is also true that since 1945, hundreds of armed conflicts have occurred, many of them provoked and with the direct or indirect participation of permanent members of the Security Council. Examples include the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Congo, Algeria, Nicaragua, Angola, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Palestine, among many others. In several of these conflicts, the UN was present, but its tremendous lack of effectiveness and effect was notorious.

One such case is Rwanda in 1994 – despite numerous reports, warnings from commanders on the ground, and evidence of genocide, the United Nations Mission (UNAMIR) was limited in mandate and resources. While more than 800,000 Tutsis were massacred in one hundred days, the international community preferred silence. The UN, created to ensure that something similar would never happen again, failed. In 1999, then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted the failures of the UN's action and clarified that the organization had learned from this genocide and that from this failure , "the international community could and would act to prevent or halt any similar catastrophe in the future." But did the UN truly learn? No.

Last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), at the request of South Africa, recognized the risk of ongoing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. With more than 56,000 deaths since October 2023, the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and the forced displacement of 1.7 million people, the criteria defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide are met. However, the UN Security Council, its supreme body, remains blocked and paralyzed, in this case, due to the US veto.

The Security Council

The central problem of the UN's inaction stems from the actions of the Security Council, its only binding body, dominated by five veto-wielding countries. It was created based on the global order in 1945, not on ideas of representativeness or legal equity. Indeed, the US, the UK, France, China, and Russia (permanent members of the Security Council) hold absolute blocking power over any resolution, including the most serious cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The veto has been used to protect allies and strategic actions, cover up war crimes, hinder investigations, and block sanctions. The veto power, used primarily by the USSR/Russia and the US, renders international law conditional rather than binding, and the rights of peoples negotiable. When Russia can veto resolutions regarding its actions in Ukraine, or the US can veto resolutions that undermine its ally Israel, international law is weakened and the principle of legal equity is ignored. The idea of impartiality that underlies the UN is compromised. How can a system exist that demands compliance with international law by the majority, but leaves the most powerful unpunished?

Silence and inaction

The UN's "success" in preventing World War III is a distraction. This celebration ignores the persistence of injustice. It ignores the fact that what matters to the victims of Mariupol, Khan Younis, Darfur, or Myanmar is knowing whether their children will have access to water, food, schools, and hospitals, whether they will survive the war and its systemic destruction, ignored or even sponsored by states with Security Council power.

Furthermore, the UN has continually failed in peacekeeping operations, including Srebrenica and the UNPROFOR/UNPF mission, and Rwanda and the UNAMIR mission. In 2000, the Brahimi Report , which analyzed the failures of UN peacekeeping missions, warned of the need for urgent reforms; however, 25 years later, little has changed. The MONUSCO mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo failed, with mission members even being accused of rape . Also in Haiti, MINUSTAH —another mission—did not improve the situation there; on the contrary, the mission was accused of human rights violations and even of introducing cholera into Haiti in 2010 .

Is the UN worth keeping? Yes.

Despite all its failures, the UN remains the only multilateral forum where the essential issues of private international law are debated. It is in the General Assembly that countries of the Global South are heard, it is in the Human Rights Council that violations are documented, and it is in agencies like the WHO, UNESCO, UNHCR, and FAO that vaccination, refugee protection, education, and food security programs are developed. The UN fails not because it is unnecessary, nor because it is insufficient. Its absence would be catastrophic. Without the UN, there would be no agreement on international law; without this agreement, accountability of states would be impossible, and justice for peoples would be impossible.

Solutions for the UN

The UN's 80th anniversary celebration cannot simply serve to reaffirm its founding intentions; it must be a time for system renewal. It is imperative to address the rigidity of a system built in 1945, which is now outdated, blocked, and outdated. Reforming the UN, and especially the Security Council, is urgent, and, contrary to what is often claimed, it is legally possible.

The United Nations Charter provides for its reform. Articles 108 and 109 establish two paths to change its content. The first, more direct, requires a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly, followed by ratification by two-thirds of the member states, including all permanent members of the Security Council. The second, via the General Review Conference of the Charter, also requires two-thirds of the Assembly and nine of the fifteen members of the Security Council to convene, with the final one also requiring ratification by all permanent members. Of course, reform is not legally blocked, only politically, if its permanent members refuse to relinquish their power.

There are also historical precedents. Indeed, Articles 23 and 27 of the Charter were amended in 1965, increasing the number of Security Council members from 11 to 15 and adjusting the voting criteria. Article 61 was also amended (in 1965 and 1973) to reform the Economic and Social Council. This demonstrates that the Charter can be amended, even in areas considered sensitive.

There are even some proposals on this matter. In September 2024, the US supported adding two new permanent African members and a representative of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to the Security Council. Legally, such a change again requires changes to Articles 23 (on the Council's composition) and 27 (on voting procedures), but it is possible provided there is political will. However, the discussion becomes more intense and complex regarding the veto of these new members: do they have this right or not? Article 27.3 of the Charter defines the requirement for "concurring votes of the permanent members." Therefore, the new permanent members would also have a veto. However, all permanent members would, naturally, retain the right of veto and systemic blocking. Therefore, it is necessary to go further.

The most ambitious, yet absolutely necessary, proposal would be to modify Articles 108 and 109 themselves to remove the veto power of the permanent members in a Charter reform process. This would involve moving to a system of ratification by simple supermajority, thus diminishing the power of the great powers, which would allow for a periodic and equitable review of the UN's functioning. Such a measure would be revolutionary, but it has legal merit. Once again, however, it faces the need for approval by the permanent members, whose power is now being sought to be limited.

The option that would face less diplomatic resistance would be the creation of a periodic General Conference to review the Charter, held every five or ten years, where member states could formally discuss reforms for the organization. This conference, provided for in Article 109, has never been used. Creating it now, in 2025, would be a clear step toward modernization, a way to institutionalize reform rather than continuing to postpone it indefinitely.

The UN remains necessary. But it will only be relevant if its members are courageous enough to transform it. Because true peace requires more than simply avoiding a world war. It requires fearlessly confronting all the wars and conflicts the world continues to pretend it doesn't see.

Courage

This UN anniversary cannot be merely a ritual of self-celebration, but rather a moment of reflection and introspection. The narrative that the UN prevented World War III cannot continue to serve as a shield to conceal paralysis in the face of countless prolonged wars and the deaths they cause. The absence of conflict between great powers does not erase the existence of armed violence, hunger, and systematic suffering that is ignored and exploited.

The UN has failed and will continue to fail whenever international law is subject to the political veto of five states. The continued existence of the Security Council as it was 80 years ago impedes the necessary actions to protect the citizens the UN claims to defend. Despite the UN's founding ideas, the reality of its current inaction undermines the system's legitimacy. It takes courage to reform the Charter, courage to confront the UN's system of structural privilege, courage to institutionalize the review process—courage to build a truly representative system for the 21st century.

The UN's continued existence depends on its courage to transform itself. It is time for concrete, structural reforms. It is not enough to invoke the past to justify present inaction.

Saving current and future generations from the scourge of war, destruction and death is not just the preamble to the Charter, it is a promise that must always be fulfilled and a responsibility that can no longer be postponed.

The texts in this section reflect the authors' personal opinions. They do not represent VISÃO nor reflect its editorial position.