Mixed Outlook For The UN On Its 80th Birthday – OpEd
United Nations flag. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency
By Arab News
By Andrew Hammond
The UN celebrated its 80th birthday on Thursday. But Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used the occasion to warn that its founding charter is under assault like never before.
The organization was created out of the trauma of the Second World War, with the UN Charter inked by an initial 50 states on June 26, 1945. It came into force later that year with the aim of trying to prevent future wars, while also upholding human dignity and equal rights.
Guterres warned on Thursday that “we see an all-too-familiar pattern: follow when the charter suits, ignore when it does not. The Charter of the United Nations is not optional. It is not an a la carte menu. It is the bedrock of international relations.”
Of course, countries regularly accuse each other of violating the charter. In recent years, Russia and Israel have been cited by the General Assembly for violating it in Ukraine and Gaza, respectively. Earlier this month, Iran accused the US of breaching the charter with its strikes on three of its nuclear facilities.
Yet, as many challenges as the world body now faces, its 80th birthday underlines that it continues to have resilience and legitimacy. This is despite growing concerns over its relevance in an increasingly contentious, fragmented world.
There is still widespread recognition that global challenges can best be tackled through international, coordinated action, often led by the UN. And despite the deep decay of the post-1945 order, the remaining postwar international institutions — with the UN at their heart — continue to have major relevance almost a century after their birth. While these bodies are imperfect and in need of significant reform, they have generally enabled international prosperity and security, especially with the two most powerful countries in the world today, China and the US, both being permanent members of the Security Council.
The UN’s continuing relevance underlines the wisdom of the critical mass of nations that decided, at that time, to try to change the course of history by committing to work together for peace. In the decades since the signing of the charter, the world body has worked unwaveringly for peace, dialogue and cooperation to promote human rights, the rule of law and sustainable development, as well as fighting climate change.
Given the overall success of the UN after three-quarters of a century, one of the many ironies of the current political era is the sea change in view of the US administration. The UN and fellow multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were key parts of the postwar settlement championed by American presidents in the 1940s and which were subsequently cultivated on a bipartisan basis by successors of every stripe to bolster US global leadership during the Cold War and beyond.
Yet, today’s administration is widely viewed to be hastening the collapse of that same postwar order. This surprises many across the world, given that the post-1945 system has generally been so beneficial for Washington in terms of both soft and hard power.
President Donald Trump, unlike all his postwar predecessors in the White House, has disowned many of the US-led institutions and alliances, promising instead an “America First” platform. On his first day back in power in January, for instance, he signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization.
The UN is also concerned about the expected outcome of a US review of its participation in the UN and other multilateral institutions, which was ordered by Trump and is expected in August. More than 60 UN offices, agencies and operations that get money from the organization’s regular operating budget are already facing job cuts of about 20 percent — part of reforms made by Guterres due to the White House’s already-announced funding cuts and wider developments.
But dismantlement is one thing — building something new is another. Thus far, the administration is yet to forge any comprehensive new doctrine centered on its core vision. Indeed, there has often been policy incoherence, reflecting the president’s transactional style of governing.
However, it is not just the vacuum caused by a lack of US leadership in the UN that is contributing to the uncertainty surrounding both it and the wider erosion of the post-Second World War settlement in the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous landscape of 2025. For there is also growing geopolitical angst, as shown by the current tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine, not to mention other conflicts such as those in Sudan, eastern Congo, Haiti and Myanmar.
What makes this so worrying for the UN and other proponents of international peace and security is that it comes on top of layers of previous turbulence in the international landscape. The multiple challenges now confronting the international order include the fact that Washington’s relations with China are at one of their lowest points in decades.
A fundamental driver of whether the UN will thrive, not just survive, in the coming years is the direction of the ties between the US and China, the two most powerful members of the UNSC. With the US exiting the WHO and cutting its funding to other UN agencies, China’s influence will increase.
Right now, the US-China relationship seems set for growing bilateral rivalry and what some see as a new cold war that could see international cooperation erode, including over technology and wider trade issues. Military tensions are also increasing, from the South China Sea outward.
However, there may still be unexpected potential for partnership at the UN and beyond. Bilateral cooperation, possibly in the era after the Trump presidency, is most likely if stronger partnerships can be embedded on issues like climate change, as during the Barack Obama and Joe Biden years, which may enable more effective ways of resolving hard power disputes.
- Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
Arab News
Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).
