UN reform and its impact on the contemporary international relations system threats and challenges

Abstract

The article discusses the activities of the United Nations, which is considered to be the only current world universal international intergovernmental organization. The aim was to study the causes of the decline in the UN effectiveness and to analyze options for a possible reform. Having studied various UN documents (the Charter, resolutions, proposals of the secretaries-general, press releases, etc.), the authors inferred that a series of crises and failures of the UN put the majority of states in need of its reform. The reasons for the UN possible transformation, according to researchers, can be: (1) the UN disregard by the great powers and the conduct of military operations without a corresponding resolution; (2) the privileged powers have little regard for the opinions of the so-called “small” countries; (3) excessive bureaucracy and inefficient spending of the UN general budget; (4) the uncertainty in the declared goals and functions of various departments, which leads to duplication of their activities. In connection with these identified reasons, the UN comprehensive reform has now become considered one of the most urgent and complex tasks in contemporary international relations. The study notes that the problem of the UN reform has been of concern to the international community since the 1990s, when some of the reforms were presented and partially implemented, for example, regarding the activities of the Secretariat or the formation of new organizations under the UN auspices. However, the reforms of the General Assembly, the International Court of Justice, the UN financing, etc. are still controversial. At the same time, the problem of reforming the Security Council is the biggest discussion theme. The authors inferred that disputes on the transformation of the Security Council are conducted in two main directions: regarding the increase in the number of countries in the Security Council and the presence of the veto power of the permanent members. In addition, the difficulties of the reform process lie in the fact that the member states of the Security Council express different ways of resolving the problem and cannot come to a single solution or compromise at the moment. The article provides an analysis of various options for the Security Council reforms proposed by the Group of Four, the African Union, Unity for Consensus, and others. As a result, none of the projects can find sufficient support from other states, which makes it very difficult to discuss and find a single version of the reforms. The authors conclude that in the medium term major changes are not expected in the issue of the UN reform, which is associated with the presence of primary global tasks (for example, overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic), as well as internal crises of individual states and associations.