The United Nations is in deep crisis. What you need to know

The 80th session of the UN General Assembly opens on September 9. In particular, the issues of the crisis that the world organization is experiencing will be discussed there. In recent years and decades, the UN has partially lost its credibility: according to the organization itself, no one reads its reports, and resolutions are ignored. Often, business trips to the permanent mission of a country to the United Nations are considered something like a well-deserved pension — a good salary and a minimum of real diplomatic work. Inefficiency, rising costs, and reflecting the realities of the past rather than the present are driving the UN to the point of no return. Izvestia investigated whether the institute of global governance is doomed to destruction and whether there are alternatives.

How the world treats the UN

• The crisis at the United Nations and its declining role in world affairs have been talked about for years. The structure, which after its creation was, in fact, the supreme collective intelligence in resolving global and regional crises, has lost its power over the past decades.

• The organization is compared to an "old company" that cannot adapt to modern challenges and does not reflect the world's movement towards multipolarity. New centers of power are now appearing on the political map — in particular, countries that were recently considered representatives of the third world and which demand that their voice be heard. However, they are still not among the permanent members of the Security Council, the structure that bears primary responsibility for maintaining peace and security.

• Many resolutions of the UN General Assembly designed to stop conflicts in hot spots remain ignored, as the direct participants simply ignore the decisions of the international community. The UN is also criticized for its lack of activity in resolving the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East, noting that the global institution, in fact, simply remains an outside observer.

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The collective West began to use the UN rostrum as a stage for political performances. So, in 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell showed the audience a test tube that allegedly contained samples of weapons of mass destruction, which Iraq allegedly possessed. It later turned out that this was just a bluff — Washington and London needed support before the invasion of Iraq began soon. As American officials later admitted, there were actually no dangerous substances in Powell's test tube.

Problems of bureaucracy and financing

• In 2017, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres acknowledged that the world organization is burdened with "fragmented structures, confusing procedures and endless bureaucracy." He also said that the huge number of meetings held under the auspices of the United Nations and a ton of documentation are pushing the organization to the point of no return. So, according to the calculations of the UN itself, only last year its secretariat published about 1.1 thousand reports on various topics, which is 20% more than in 1990. At the same time, only 5% of the most popular reports were uploaded online more than 5.5 thousand times. The bulk of the documents — more than 67% — account for less than 2 thousand downloads by Internet users. And the fact that the report is uploaded does not guarantee that it will actually be read.

• The UN recognizes the inefficiency of the work: too many senior positions, duplication of authority, unjustified increase in costs. They are considering several options for reorganization, which involves combining dozens of agencies into four main departments: peace and security, humanitarian affairs, sustainable development and human rights. For example, among the options is to create a single humanitarian structure from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, WHO and UNICEF.

• This is necessary, among other things, in the context of the unprecedented financial crisis that the United Nations is currently experiencing. At the beginning of the year, the United States, the organization's largest donor, had about $1.5 billion in arrears on mandatory payments to the regular budget and $1.2 billion in arrears on peacekeeping operations.

• Overall, only 61 countries have fulfilled all their financial obligations to the world organization in full: the UN currently has $2.4 billion in unpaid contributions to the regular budget and $2.7 billion for peacekeeping. In total, the organization includes over 190 States.

• Staff reductions are taking place in various UN agencies due to underfunding. In May, protests were held in Switzerland, Thailand and Myanmar because of this. And layoffs will continue. For example, the International Organization for Migration expects a 30% reduction in its budget, which will affect 6,000 jobs.

Disputes about reforms or liquidation

• Discussions on the need to reform one of the key governing bodies of the United Nations, the Security Council, have been going on since the 90s. Its structure was formed as a result of the Second World War and reflects past realities that do not correspond to modern times. Thus, the five permanent members of the Security Council, endowed with the right of veto, do not represent the new giants of the modern world. Moreover, almost all UN countries agree with this, however, when in 2007 the Security Council submitted a regular report on the prospects for reform to the General Assembly, the Member states did not come to a consensus.

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Moscow and Washington have repeatedly called for reform, agreeing that the Security Council is not currently represented by all countries. However, Russia considers it right to include countries in the permanent membership that would implement independent policies and not be blind executors of the will of the West. For example, India has long been claiming to be a permanent member of the Security Council. Both Indonesia and Brazil insist on changes at the UN, as these countries also advocate for a wider representation of new major players in the organization. Germany, Japan and African countries also require permanent membership.

• The expert community believes that although reforms are long overdue, they may not be worth pursuing now, since international institutions are already subject to erosion — they simply have stopped paying attention. And if at this moment, in the context of the declining authority of the world organization, you start to rebuild it, there are risks to worsen the situation. Nevertheless, the reforms must meet the new realities of international relations. And if the world eventually comes to multipolarity, then the Security Council must reflect this — all centers of power must be equally represented in it.

• In the near future, the UN will continue to exist in the status quo, because there are no real alternatives to it yet, experts are sure. At the same time, more and more countries are finding new platforms for interaction. These are the BRICS, the G20, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Those countries that in recent years and decades have turned from global outsiders into economically, technologically, and socially actively developing states receive an equal place in many structures there.

During the preparation of the Izvestia material, we talked and took into account the opinion of:

• Lev Sokolshchik, a visiting researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.