The United Nations Is Working or Broken? And International Law Is Just a Piece of Paper.
The United Nations Is
Working
Broken.
And International Law
Is Just a Piece of Paper.
In 2024, the Security Council cast 8 vetoes — the most since 1986. In 2025, it passed only 44 resolutions — the fewest since 1991. While Gazans were buried, Ukrainians bombed, and Venezuela invaded — UN officials held meetings, drafted communiqués, and accomplished nothing. This is the full indictment.
There is a building on the East River in New York City. Forty-two floors of glass and steel. Inside, thousands of diplomats, officials, translators, and administrators work every day of every year. Their salaries are paid by 193 member states. Their mandate, written in 1945, is the most ambitious in human history: to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations; to achieve international cooperation in solving human problems; and to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations. That building is the United Nations Headquarters. And in March 2026, it is possible to say with documented, evidence-based precision that it is failing at every single one of those goals — simultaneously, completely, and with no credible plan to change.
This is not pessimism. It is not anti-UN ideology. It is the rational conclusion drawn from the organisation's own data, its own officials' statements, and the results — or rather the catastrophic absence of results — that 2024 and 2025 produced in Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, Sudan, and Myanmar. The numbers tell the story more honestly than any press release ever will.
SECTION I The Numbers That Condemn It
In 2024, permanent members cast eight vetoes — the highest since 1986. In 2025, the Council adopted only 44 resolutions, the lowest since 1991. These are not abstractions. They are a quantitative measure of institutional paralysis. The Security Council — the only UN body with legally binding enforcement power, the only organ that can authorise military action, impose sanctions, or compel member states to act — has become a chamber where the five most powerful nations come to protect their own interests while wrapping their selfishness in the language of international law.
On Gaza, the Council was only able to pass a ceasefire resolution 171 days into Israel's assault, the USA having vetoed four earlier proposals. By the time Resolution 2728 passed in March 2024, over 10,000 people had already been killed, and Israel's immediate response was to announce it would ignore the resolution entirely. Read that again. The Security Council finally passed a resolution — after 171 days, after 10,000 deaths — and the nation it was directed at simply announced it would not comply. And then continued its operations. And faced no consequences whatsoever.
SECTION II What UN Officials Are Actually Doing
This is the section that no UN press release will ever write. While conflicts raged, civilians died, and international law was violated in real time — here is a documented account of what the UN's senior officials and the Security Council were actually doing in 2024 and 2025.
- In 2024 the Security Council was confronted with continuing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, severe deterioration in Sudan, and a sudden shift in Syria. Differing strategic interests among major powers restricted the Council's ability to address these crises.
- In early January 2026, an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Venezuela exposed a familiar paralysis. Members clashed over the US government's capture of Nicolás Maduro, with many warning it set a dangerous precedent, but no resolution came.
- An unusually high number of unexpected crisis situations — ranging from conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand and between India and Pakistan to a coup in Guinea-Bissau and tensions between the US and Venezuela — were the focus of some attention. While the Council held meetings and consultations on these, it took no substantive action: no resolutions, peacekeeping deployments or enforcement measures.
- The UN Secretary-General António Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time in decades — a rare emergency power — to draw the Security Council's attention to Gaza. The Council held a meeting. Then cast a veto. Nothing changed.
- Major powers are regularly at odds, Gaza has seen mass civilian casualties, multilateralism is weakening and a permanent Security Council member illegally invaded Ukraine. UN officials admit that morale is low.
- The UN faces a severe liquidity crisis in 2026 — member states have withheld contributions, leaving the organisation unable to fund basic operations, with peacekeeping missions under threat of suspension.
- Trump's "Board of Peace" — a body he personally chairs with sole authority to appoint members, veto decisions, and set agendas — has been positioned as an alternative to the UN Security Council, with membership skewed toward authoritarian regimes.
"When it comes to atrocity crimes, the use of the veto should simply not be allowed. Gaza is the ultimate test — and millions of Palestinians have paid the price of our failure to stop the killing machine launched against them."
— Palestinian Observer to the UN · Official UN Security Council StatementSECTION III Is International Law Worth Anything?
This is the central question — and it deserves a direct, honest answer rather than a diplomatic evasion. The answer is: it depends entirely on who you are. If you are a small country without powerful allies — international law is the only protection you have, and it sometimes works. If you are a powerful country with a permanent Security Council seat — international law is something you invoke when it serves your interests and ignore when it does not. And if you are an ally of a permanent Security Council member — you are essentially immune from international accountability, regardless of what you do.
The ICC — Power Without Teeth
The International Criminal Court represents the most serious attempt to make international law genuinely enforceable. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. This was a genuinely historic development. And then: the United States threatened sanctions against any country that arrested Netanyahu. Britain wavered on whether to comply. The warrants exist. The arrests have not happened. The message to every future war criminal is unmistakably clear: if you have the right allies, an ICC warrant is a piece of paper.
The ICJ — The One Court That Still Has Credibility
The International Court of Justice — the UN's principal judicial organ — has been the one bright spot in an otherwise dark picture. South Africa accused Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice. Some thirteen states supported this action, and the Court's provisional calls on Israel to ease humanitarian access to Gaza and safeguard civilians have emboldened advocates of an end to hostilities. The ICJ has issued multiple orders. Israel has not complied. But the process has continued — building a legal record, establishing precedent, and demonstrating that at least one international institution is attempting to function as designed.
- Works for small nations: International law consistently protects smaller nations in territorial disputes, trade conflicts, and treaty interpretations — because powerful nations have no interest in violating it in these lower-stakes situations
- Fails for victims of powerful nations: When a P5 member or their ally commits violations, international law is blocked at the Security Council veto stage before any enforcement can begin
- ICJ orders ignored: Both Russia (Ukraine) and Israel (Gaza) have received ICJ orders they have not complied with — the Court has no enforcement mechanism of its own
- ICC warrants blocked: The ICC's Netanyahu warrant has not been executed. The US has threatened sanctions against any complying country — making the warrant effectively unenforceable
- The Geneva Conventions: Apply in theory to all parties in all conflicts. In practice, compliance is monitored by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which operates on confidential diplomacy, not public accountability
- The verdict: International law is a real and valuable framework — but its enforcement is selective, its courts lack independent power, and its effectiveness is directly proportional to whether powerful nations choose to apply it
SECTION IV The Structure Is the Problem
Since the UN was established, the number of member states has quadrupled and the global population has grown from 2.5 to 8 billion. But former colonial powers that represent a minority of the world's population still hold permanent seats while entire continents remain unrepresented. Africa — 1.4 billion people, 54 nations — has zero permanent seats on the Security Council. Latin America — 650 million people — has zero. The Arab world — 450 million people — has zero. The five permanent members were chosen not because they represented humanity but because they won a war in 1945. Eighty years later, that accident of history continues to determine who has veto power over the lives of 8 billion people.
SECTION V What Reform Actually Looks Like
The reform debate has been running for three decades. Everyone agrees the UN needs reform. Nobody with the power to make it happen agrees on how. Here are the main proposals currently on the table — and an honest assessment of whether any of them will succeed.
SECTION V-A The Iran–Israel–America War — The UN's Ultimate Disgrace
On February 28, 2026 — the United States and Israel launched a massive coordinated military assault on a sovereign UN member state. Iran's supreme leader was assassinated on the first night. Over 7,600 strikes hit Iranian cities. A school in Minab was bombed, killing more than 85 children — confirmed by Iran's UN Ambassador as a war crime. The Strait of Hormuz was closed. Twenty percent of the world's oil supply was disrupted. And the United Nations Security Council — the one body in the entire world specifically created to stop exactly this kind of aggression — held a meeting.
They held a meeting. Delegates gave speeches. Ambassadors traded accusations. The Secretary-General expressed deep concern. And then — nothing. No binding resolution. No accountability. No consequences for the aggressor. The most powerful military operation against a sovereign state since the Iraq War — and the UN's response was a heated debate followed by paralysis.
- February 28: Emergency Security Council meeting called by France, Bahrain, Russia, China and Colombia. Guterres condemned US-Israeli strikes as violating the UN Charter. The US delegate defended the strikes. Iran's delegate called them a war crime. The meeting ended. Bombs continued falling.
- The Russian Draft Resolution — Russia tabled a draft calling for immediate ceasefire. It was rejected 4 in favour, 2 against, 9 abstentions. The US voted against it. A resolution calling for de-escalation in an active war was killed by the country that started the war — while that same country held the rotating Council presidency for March 2026.
- Resolution 2817 passed — condemned Iran's retaliatory strikes on Gulf states by 13-0 (China and Russia abstaining). Did not condemn the US-Israeli strikes that started the war. Iran's delegate called it "a serious setback to the Council's credibility and a lasting stain on its record."
- The US held the Council presidency in March — the country that launched the war chaired the meetings about the war. No conflict of interest was acknowledged. No rule of the Council prevented it.
- Pakistan's statement: Pakistan at the Council condemned "the initiation of unwarranted attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran, in violation of international law" — one of the few countries willing to name the aggressor directly.
- China's statement: Called the strikes "brazen" and "shocking" given that diplomatic negotiations were under way. Voted to abstain rather than veto the one-sided resolution. Lamented but did nothing.
- Result after 25+ days of war: Zero binding ceasefire. Zero accountability for strikes on a school killing 85 children. Zero enforcement of international law. The UN Secretary-General's words: ignored. The UN Charter's prohibitions: violated without consequence.
"The very State responsible for the brutal war of aggression against my country — the United States — sits in the Chamber as Council President, abusing its position while obstructing every effort to bring an end to the barbaric war."
— Iran's Permanent Representative to the UN · Security Council Chamber · March 2026Read that statement again. The country that launched the war — without Security Council authorisation, without Congressional declaration, in violation of the UN Charter according to the UN's own experts — was simultaneously chairing the Security Council meetings about that war. This is not a flaw in the system. This is the system. This is what the "rules-based international order" looks like when the rules meet a permanent member with nuclear weapons and no accountability.
SECTION V-B America's Regime Change Addiction — Who Gave Them the Right?
The Iran war was not about nuclear weapons. Trump said it explicitly — on Truth Social, in his address to the nation, in press conferences: the goal was regime change. "I am open to a new supreme leader being appointed." Netanyahu said the same. This was not a counterterrorism operation. It was not a pre-emptive strike against an imminent attack. It was a deliberate attempt by two foreign governments to destroy another country's government and install something they preferred. And it was not the first time America has done this. It will not be the last.
- Iran, 1953 — CIA Operation Ajax overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalised Iranian oil. Installed Shah Reza Pahlavi. The resentment this created directly fuelled the 1979 Islamic Revolution. America created the government it spent the next 70 years fighting.
- Guatemala, 1954 — CIA Operation PBSUCCESS overthrew democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz after he redistributed United Fruit Company land to peasants. Installed military dictatorship. Guatemala suffered civil war for 36 years, killing 200,000 people.
- Chile, 1973 — CIA supported the coup that overthrew democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende. General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship killed, disappeared and tortured thousands. Nixon's National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."
- Afghanistan, 2001 — Overthrew Taliban government. Installed new government. Fought for 20 years. Spent $2.3 trillion. Taliban took Kabul in 2021 within weeks of US withdrawal. Net result: Taliban stronger, country devastated, 240,000 dead.
- Iraq, 2003 — Overthrew Saddam Hussein on false weapons of mass destruction claims. 200,000+ Iraqi civilians killed. ISIS created in the power vacuum. Middle East destabilised for decades. No accountability for the fabricated intelligence.
- Libya, 2011 — NATO intervention overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. Libya fractured into competing warlord factions. Became a major migration route causing European political crisis. Still has no functional central government in 2026.
- Venezuela, 2026 — US forces captured sitting President Nicolás Maduro and transported him to New York. Trump declared: "We're going to run the country." The UN stated this violated fundamental international obligations. 22% of Americans supported the operation. 52% opposed it. Trump did it anyway.
- Iran, 2026 — Trump and Netanyahu explicitly called for regime change as a war objective. Supreme Leader Khamenei assassinated on Day 1. Trump: "I am open to a new supreme leader being appointed after Khamenei's death."
The circular logic America uses to justify regime change operations is always the same: the government we are removing is bad. The people deserve better. We are liberating them. But who appointed America as the arbiter of which governments are legitimate? Who gave Washington the authority to decide that Mosaddegh was not democratic enough, that Allende was not capitalist enough, that Saddam was too dangerous, that Maduro is too corrupt, that Khamenei must die? The answer — under international law, under the UN Charter, under every principle of sovereign equality the world agreed to in 1945 — is nobody. Nobody gave America that right. America took it. And the United Nations — the institution specifically built to prevent exactly this — has watched it happen for 70 years, issued statements of deep concern, and done nothing.
- The United States launched an illegal war against Iran on February 28, 2026 — without UN Security Council authorisation, in violation of the UN Charter
- From March 1, 2026 — the United States took over the rotating monthly presidency of the UN Security Council
- This means the country that launched the war was simultaneously chairing all Security Council meetings about the war
- Russia's draft resolution calling for ceasefire was voted down — the US voted against it
- Resolution 2817 condemned Iran's retaliatory strikes but NOT the original US-Israeli attack — the aggressor wrote the resolution that blamed the victim
- Iran's Ambassador said it plainly: "The very State responsible for the brutal war of aggression against my country sits as Council President, abusing its position while obstructing every effort to end the war"
- This is not a breakdown of the system. This IS the system — functioning exactly as the five permanent members designed it in 1945 to function: to protect themselves from accountability while maintaining the language of universal justice
SECTION VI The Honest Opinion
The United Nations held an emergency meeting on the day America launched an illegal war against Iran. Guterres condemned the strikes as violating the UN Charter. The Security Council debated. Russia's ceasefire draft was killed. America — the aggressor — chaired the proceedings. A resolution passed condemning Iran's retaliation while ignoring the original crime. And the bombs continued falling. If that sequence does not constitute institutional failure, the word has no meaning.
America has overthrown governments on four continents across seven decades. Guatemala. Iran. Chile. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Venezuela. Iran again. In every case the UN issued a statement. In no case did the UN stop it. The organisation built specifically to prevent exactly this — the use of force against the sovereignty of nations — has watched it happen repeatedly, and its structural design makes it incapable of stopping it when the aggressor holds a veto.
International law is real. It has genuine achievements. But in 2026, when Iran's UN Ambassador can stand in the Security Council chamber and correctly observe that the country bombing his nation is simultaneously chairing the meeting about the bombing — international law has not just failed. It has been publicly humiliated. The question is not whether the UN can survive this. It is whether the world will finally demand the structural reform — an end to the veto, genuine Global South representation, independent enforcement — that would make it worth saving. Every day that question goes unanswered, somewhere in the world, the weakest pay for the most powerful's impunity.
— Sodager Nadeem Malik · Independent Geopolitical Analyst · Sodager's Geopolitics Views · March 25, 2026
Comments
Post a Comment