The Continued Relevance of the United Nations

The room is always the same: green marble rostrum, headphones whispering a dozen languages at once, nameplates from Andorra to Zimbabwe. Delegates file in with speeches that have been drafted, cleared, and redrafted again. Cameras catch the choreography; cynics call it theatre. But if you listen closely, the General Assembly is less a stage than a barometer. It registers the world’s pressure—war, famine, flood, debt—and, at its best, turns ambient grief and grit into collective rules and action.

The UN’s staying power begins with something prosaic: universality. With 193 member states sharing a one-country-one-vote chamber, it is still the only room on Earth where Tuvalu and the United States speak from the same dais and into the same record. The Assembly’s remit—debate, recommend, elect, budget—sounds modest. And yet that modesty is precisely what makes it indispensable: a standing forum where the world can talk before it burns. (United Nations)

The Charter never promised a world government. The Security Council can mandate sanctions and force; the Court in The Hague can adjudicate disputes between states; specialized agencies steward everything from aviation standards to weather warnings. But the UN cannot tax or conscript. It is scaffolding for collective action built on consent—an architecture that shines when big powers agree and creaks when they don’t. (United Nations)

Yes, the veto haunts the 21st century as surely as it did the 20th. In response, member states have upgraded accountability: any time a veto is used, the General Assembly now automatically convenes a public debate about it—naming, explaining, and, sometimes, shaming. It’s not a cure; it is a light. And when the Council is gridlocked, long-standing precedents allow the Assembly to step forward with recommendations—less teeth, more voice, but not nothing. (documents.un.org)

Peacekeeping—frequently caricatured by its blue helmets—remains one of the UN’s cheapest forms of crisis insurance. As of 2025, the UN runs 11 missions, with a peacekeeping budget on the order of $5–6 billion a year—roughly what the world spends on the military every 13 hours. Yet even this tool is under stress: amid arrears and political headwinds, the UN has approved a leaner budget for 2025–26 and announced cuts to uniformed personnel. Less presence will almost certainly mean more risk for civilians. (United Nations Peacekeeping)

Crucially, peacekeeping works better than its detractors admit. A growing body of research shows that deploying blue helmets correlates with fewer civilian killings and reduced battlefield deaths—imperfect, context-bound, but statistically real. Peacekeepers do not end wars; they narrow their killing fields and extend the space for politics. (ohchr.org)

Scale also matters. In 2024, global military expenditure hit a record $2.7 trillion. Against that, the UN’s entire regular budget for 2025—funding core political, human rights, legal, and development work—was $3.72 billion. Whatever you think of the UN, it is not expensive; it is underwritten on loose change compared to what nations spend to prepare for—rather than prevent—catastrophe. (Reuters)

Then there is the humanitarian backbone that the UN quietly provides. Through its relief coordination system, appeals now regularly seek tens of billions of dollars to reach over 150 million people a year—food, shelter, safe water, protection. The gap between needs and funding keeps widening; the work continues anyway, day after day, often in places where no other flag can operate. (unocha.org)

Public health offers the cleanest line from multilateralism to lives saved. Under WHO’s umbrella, humanity eradicated smallpox—our only complete victory over a human disease—and is pushing polio to the brink, despite setbacks. During COVID-19, an imperfect but unprecedented effort—COVAX—delivered nearly 2 billion vaccine doses to 146 economies, a proof of concept for distributing scarce lifesaving tools more fairly next time. These are not headlines; they are milestones in the human record. (WHO Apps)

On the planet itself, the UN has been the clearinghouse for the rules we’ll live—or drown—by. The Paris Agreement set a cycle of national pledges and stocktakes that now drives domestic climate policy. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework set the “30×30” target to protect a third of land and sea by 2030. States have also agreed a new treaty to conserve the high seas, entering into force in early 2026. And every September, scientists remind us that the Montreal Protocol—the old ozone pact—shows what happens when evidence meets enforcement: the sky heals. (SDG Knowledge Hub)

If the UN is so vital, why the fatigue? Because our ambitions now outstrip our arrangements. On the Sustainable Development Goals, the world is off track on most targets; progress that survived the pandemic is fraying under war, debt, and disaster. The answer is not to ditch the scoreboard but to take it seriously—and to invest in the referees. (Wikipedia)

There are also wounds the UN inflicted on itself. Sexual exploitation and abuse linked to some peacekeeping contingents have scarred communities and trust. Reforms have tightened investigations and victim support, but they must go further: faster accountability, better pre-deployment vetting, real consequences from the capitals supplying troops. The organization’s legitimacy depends on how it polices its own badge. (AP News)

Relevance, however, is not static; it is chosen. In 2024, governments adopted a “Pact for the Future” that, while not rewriting the Charter, does sketch a path for updating multilateralism: tackling debt and digital governance, nudging Security Council reform, and recommitting to disarmament. If member states mean it, the pact can be a hinge rather than a homily. (Reuters)

What, then, should we ask of the UN at eighty? First, honesty about power: expand the Security Council in ways that reflect today’s world, including Africa’s overdue claim, and discipline the veto—at minimum through political costs; ideally through negotiated restraint. Second, finance fit for purpose: predictable core funding for peacekeeping and relief, not hat-passing during famines. Third, delivery: fewer overlapping mandates, more field capacity, faster logistics, stronger partnerships with regional bodies and civil society. Fourth, law and legitimacy: double down on the Court’s authority and on norms—from climate to cyber—that keep pace with risk.

In the end, the UN remains a mirror. When we call it “paralyzed,” we usually mean the countries that make it up are at cross-purposes. When we call it “irrelevant,” we often mean we wish it could do what we refuse to empower it to do. But when we use it—when we fund it, reform it, and follow through—it does things no one else can: feed a city, certify an election, police a ceasefire line, write the treaty that saves a biome, send a vaccine into a warzone. The green marble is not magic. It is a table. It still matters who shows up, what they bring, and whether we let that patient machinery do the slow, necessary work of holding the world together.

Endnotes

1. United Nations. “Member States.” (accessed Oct. 2025). (United Nations)
2. United Nations. “Functions and powers of the General Assembly.” (accessed Oct. 2025). (United Nations)
3. United Nations. Charter of the United Nations (Articles 10, 24, etc.). (accessed Oct. 2025). (United Nations)
4. United Nations Security Council. “Functions and Powers.” (accessed Oct. 2025). (main.un.org)
5. UN General Assembly Resolution 76/262 (2022): Standing mandate for GA debate when a veto is cast. (accessed Oct. 2025). (documents.un.org)
6. UN DPPA / Humanitarian Data Exchange. “Security Council Vetoes Since 1946 (dataset).” (updated Apr. 2025). (data.humdata.org)
7. UN Peacekeeping. “Global data and approved budget (2024–25).” (accessed Oct. 2025). (United Nations Peacekeeping)
8. UN News / GA coverage. “General Assembly approves $5.38 billion peacekeeping budget for 2025–26.” (July 2025). (globalsecurity.org)
9. Reuters / AP. “UN to cut ~25% of peacekeepers amid funding shortfalls.” (Oct. 2025). (Reuters)
10. Hultman, Kathman & Shannon. “United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War.” American Journal of Political Science (2019). (ohchr.org)
11. Pettersson & Hultman. “Civilian casualties in organized violence, 1989–2014.” Journal of Peace Research (2015). (UNHCR)
12. SIPRI via Reuters. “World military expenditure hits record $2.72 trillion (2024).” (Apr. 2025). (Reuters)
13. UN Geneva / Press coverage. “General Assembly approves $3.72 billion regular budget for 2025.” (Dec. 2024). (ungeneva.org)
14. OCHA. Global Humanitarian Overview 2025—needs, targets, and funding gap. (Dec. 2024). (unocha.org)
15. WHO (WHA33.3). “Declaration of global eradication of smallpox” (1980). (WHO Apps)
16. GPEI / WHO. “Polio eradication: status and 2025–26 action plan.” (2024–25). (World Health Organization)
17. WHO / UNICEF / Gavi. “COVAX closes after delivering nearly 2 billion doses to 146 economies.” (Dec. 2023). (World Health Organization)
18. UNFCCC. “The Paris Agreement: NDCs and five-year cycle.” (accessed Oct. 2025). (SDG Knowledge Hub)
19. CBD. “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (30×30).” (Dec. 2022). (Convention on Biological Diversity)
20. UN / DOALOS. “High Seas (BBNJ) Treaty—entry into force 17 Jan 2026.” (Sept. 2025). (SDG Knowledge Hub)
21. WMO. “Ozone layer recovery shows success of the Montreal Protocol.” (Sept. 2025). (World Meteorological Organization)
22. UN DESA / SDG Report 2024. “Progress remains off track on most SDGs.” (July 2024). (Wikipedia)
23. AP. “UN: sexual exploitation and abuse allegations in missions (2024).” (Mar. 2025). (AP News)
24. Reuters / UN Press. “Pact for the Future adopted at the Summit of the Future (2024).” (Reuters)

Note: Figures and treaty timelines reflect publicly available UN and reputable news/academic sources as of 27 October 2025 (Australia/Sydney).