Why the United Nations is no longer fit for purpose

0:02Sky News. The full story first.

0:11It was set up to end war. Now, many are questioning whether the United Nations is still fit for that purpose. And this is why.

0:28I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy U-turns. We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to Politics at Sam & Anne's wherever you get your podcasts.

1:19for another one of your ideas. Hi Neil, it's Bernie here from Glasgow. I'm really enjoying the podcast. Given the amount of conflicts taking place around the world right now, is the UN still fit for purpose? Especially given the veto powers that many countries can abuse, in my opinion. While diplomacy is extremely important,

1:40Dominic Waghorn:I fear the UN resolutions don't have the teeth needed to resolve these issues. Keep up the good work. Thanks, bye. Thanks very much, Bernie. So to answer her excellent question, I talk to our international affairs editor, Dominic Wagon. Don, this one's right up your alley as our international affairs editor. But let's rewind to the very beginning of the United Nations. What was it set up for? Yeah, you're right. It's right up my alley. And it's probably one of the questions I get asked most by members of the public is, so what is the UN for and why has it failed so spectacularly? It was set up in the wake of World War II by the victors of World War II.

2:19Dominic Waghorn:and it was basically a sort of club of nations that decided that something had to be done so what the world had gone through, those two tragedies and traumas of World War I and World War II, could never be repeated. And that something had to be done that would sort of enshrine a global, united, international effort to avert any of those tragedies happening again. So I've got the preamble to the UN Charter here. So in the words of the UN itself, it says, We the people of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.

3:03Dominic Waghorn:So it goes on and on, but that gives you exactly what it's all about. The mission statement of this club of nations was to avert any repeat of the trauma that the world had gone through, but also to reassert that kind of global faith in what effectively are Judeo-Christian values of human dignity, human equality. So it's all about international law. It's keeping the world safe and secure, but also as stable as possible for people. And I think the fundamental point to make very quickly, Neil, is that it is often seen as a world government. And I think that kind of underpins the kind of disappointment many people have with it.

3:38Dominic Waghorn:It's not a government. It's not a global authority. It is a club. And it has strengths and weaknesses like any club has. Explain exactly how the club functions then. I mean, structurally, what is the United Nations? It began as a club of 51 nations. It's now almost 200 nations. And it has the body of membership. That is a UN General Assembly that meets every year, but obviously comes and goes in other diplomatic ways throughout the year. And then it has an overarching committee called the UN Security Council we've all heard of. That is made up of five permanent members. They are the five victor nations of World War II, so China, Russia, France, Britain, and America.

4:17Dominic Waghorn:And then 10 other temporary members who rotate. So every two years, 10 different countries join those permanent five. And the fundamental point about the Security Council is those five members have power of veto. So, you know, the strengths of this, of this club, if you like, are force multiplier effects. So, you know, together the world, if it's focused on one objective, that's a very powerful combination, particularly if the committee at the top is making things happen and galvanize it. But the weakness is the weakness of a club. You know, if people don't see eye to eye, you know, someone famously described it as herding cats.

4:52Dominic Waghorn:It's a good description. At its worst, it's a talking shop, but it's worse than that, it's a Tower of Babel where people can't agree. And the worst, of course, is when those five permanent members do not see eye to eye, and they haven't, you know, for at least 20 years now. And that's what effectively has made it such a dysfunctional organisation. This all goes to what are known as resolutions. And as I understand it, these can be passed by both the General Assembly, the kind of the big talky bit, and the Security Council themselves. out. Yeah, right, exactly. So the General Assembly produces resolutions that are non-binding, but they are recommendations effectively.

5:25Dominic Waghorn:A statement of intent for all the UN. Exactly. It's like it's saying all the countries here agree with a majority that something should happen. And two years after the foundation of the UN, UN General Assembly agreed, produced a resolution that agreed on the partition, or a majority voted for the partition of Palestine, the Palestinian mandate, the British had operated into a Jewish homeland, an Arab homeland. And so actually, you could say things didn't get off to a great start, because everyone wasn't on board, the Arab nations around Palestine in particular, and that led to the first Arab-Israeli war.

6:00Dominic Waghorn:So one of the first things they did, actually, the UN was use a resolution to set up the conditions for one of the world's longest running conflicts. So that's one resolution. The UN Security Council has resolutions that are meant to be binding. So if you break those resolutions, you are flouting international law. And when it's working as a sort of functioning body well, then that is a pretty punitive resolution, potentially. But if it's not working, then you can't hold people to account because the Security Council may have produced the resolution, but it may not agree on how to punish people flouting the resolution.

6:33Dominic Waghorn:And that's kind of where things have got sticky in the last couple of decades. The people who created the United Nations were not daft, and one presumes that they saw situations like this coming. I mean, take, for example, Russia blocking action on Ukraine, the United States intervening on something to do with Israel. Is that the system being abused, or is that the system working as it was supposed to? Yeah, it is built into that system. It was meant to allow for friction and tension. But where it comes unstuck is when a member of the Security Council is deliberately using and cynically using the Security Council and the UN for its own end.

7:13Dominic Waghorn:So Russia, when it got involved in Syria, for instance, it looked at what had happened, and it looked at the way the West had used the UN to achieve its own end in Iraq and Libya, and said, we're not going to allow that to happen again, but we're going to do the same thing in Syria. So they got involved saying they're supporting Bashar al-Assad, saying that they were trying to avoid Syria turning into a basket case like Iraq and Libya, but also because they wanted to get involved in a military sense and get a couple of bases in Syria. And then they very cynically used the Security Council or their position on it to veto any investigation in chemical weapons being used by their ally Bashar al-Assad and any effort to kind of remove him from power.

7:57Dominic Waghorn:That rendered the Security Council completely dysfunctional. But it also then set a precedent for arguably an even bigger threat to the UN. And that's the way America under Donald Trump has flouted the principles and completely undermined the principles really of the UN to achieve his own personal aims. That kind of leads me on to a point I was going to make, that in recent history, it has felt that where the UN has passed resolutions, the Security Council has passed resolutions, they have been used as pretext for conflict, as a justification for conflict. And I'm wondering which is the worst situation.

8:31the United Nations being used in that fashion, or Donald Trump just going wherever he wants in the world, parking his aircraft carriers and firing off a few rounds?

8:39Dominic Waghorn:Yeah, it's hard to say what is worse. Is it worse for Russia to use the UN or its position on the UN Security Council to block any meaningful investigation into one of the worst things you can do as a leader, you know, to use chemical weapons against your own people? You know, that's arguably worse than what Donald Trump has done. But I think the problem with Donald Trump is that he has an ideological problem with the UN. And that is, he doesn't see eye to eye with any of the foundational principles of the UN. This is a man who just doesn't buy into the idea of the post-war world order that we've heard all about.

9:12Dominic Waghorn:America set up this world order using the UN, using NATO, using its support for the EU, using other institutions to basically set up a world structure that suited America. We guarantee American dominance and it's kept the world relatively stable. We haven't had a repeat of World War I and World II, not so far at least. But Donald Trump, he doesn't see the world the same way. And he thinks that all these institutions are ripping America off. And so he doesn't have any time for the UN. I think he also, he and his supporters on the rights of American politics have a lot of trouble with things like abuses, you know, like where Iran is occasionally the chair of the UN Human Rights Committee.

9:49Dominic Waghorn:Unbelievable. Yeah, there are massive problems with anomalies and aberrations, if you like, where the UN's critics certainly have grounds to object with the way it operates. But I think with Donald Trump, it's a more fundamental reservation or problem he has with the UN. And so if you have an American president who has that attitude to the UN, then it's actually a bigger threat, arguably. You know, to support Bashar al-Assad or to stop him using chemical weapons is egregious. But in terms of a threat to the UN, America currently is a bigger threat. It's not funding it, and it's encouraging other nations not to believe in it.

10:22Dominic Waghorn:And as we've seen with Donald Trump and his board of peace, he's actually trying to set up something as almost a rival to the UN. But tell me why Donald Trump is wrong. I mean, give me examples of where the United Nations has actually been a force for good. So, well, I think the basic principle that if you want to avoid bad things happening, or you want to cooperate and unite together to make good things happen, And, you know, it's self-evidently true, isn't it, that you do have force multiplier effects. If the world agrees that climate change is a massive threat, it can only solve that threat by working together.

10:59Dominic Waghorn:If it believes that world hunger is a universal threat, it can only resolve that by working together. He has this sort of unique view of multilateral cooperation, which I think comes out of his New York real estate past, which is that in any deal for one person to do well, the other party has to do badly. You can't have a deal where both sides benefit mutually. A lot has been made of that, of Donald Trump. But he sees the world in terms of the strong and the weak. So the UN does not really make sense to him. He's also, as we know, a narcissistic man for whom the idea of any sort of body being a threat to his authority because it's made up of lots of other different countries.

11:44Dominic Waghorn:That is something he's very sort of resentful of as well. So for any number of reasons, and there's a lot of support on the right in American politics, the UN is a bad thing. And it's not going to work with America opposed to its principles and with Russia acting like a road state, because those are the two out of the five members of the Permanent Security Council Committee. And therefore, that is a fundamental problem for the UN.

12:14I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy U-turns. We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to Politics at Sam & An's wherever you get your podcasts.

12:48Isn't it also a kind of an added layer of complexion that over the course of the UN's history, I mean, since 1945, genuinely, there are plenty of occasions on which the UN has got it wrong or negative effects have flowed from decisions taken at the Security Council.

13:05Dominic Waghorn:Yeah, we're starting off with the partition of Palestine. That wasn't a great start because it didn't accommodate the aspirations and views of Arab states. And it used its authority in a way that did set up a conflict. Now, Israelis would say, well, it also gave us a homeland after 2 ,000 years of being persecuted. There's a lot to be said for that position as well. But it was a problematic start for the UN. Its support, the resolution that led to Western intervention in Libya, led to Gaddafi being toppled. It's always for the right reasons. It's always the right motivation, arguably. But that led to Libya descending into chaos.

13:43Dominic Waghorn:It also then led to Vladimir Putin's estrangement from the UN and all its principles. because his biographers say that he had a recording, the recording of Muammar Gaddafi being dragged out of the culvert and being beaten and bludgeoned to death. Putin's biographers say he watched over and over again, worried that the same thing could happen to him. So that was the moment when he kind of departed the UN family, if you like. So it's often these resolutions are for the right reason, but if they can't be implemented with universal support, that's where things come unstuck. I'm just wondering, though, are we entering, or indeed have we perhaps already entered a world where the UN matters less because the big powers simply ignore it?

14:21Dominic Waghorn:Yeah. I think the other point, Neil, is basically does it suit the world that we live in? You know, it suited a world that had gone through two massive traumas and wanted to get together to try and, you know, avert them ever happening again. And we now live in a world where sometimes you have to tell people what the Second World War actually was. Yeah, there is that. But also we live in a world where it seems the world's greatest superpower thinks it should be a world where might is right, where force prevails, that doesn't believe in multilateral organisations, doesn't really believe in a rules-based world order, is arguably the biggest source of risk in the world.

14:56Dominic Waghorn:And it's a world where if you have an American president who seems to prefer strongmen over his allies, and you have a Russian leader invading a neighbour and trying to prove that might is right, if you have a Chinese leader who at some point in his time in office is likely to do something similar to Taiwan. You know, obviously, we need to have a return to the principles of 1945, but that's not the world we live in. So in a sense, it's unfair to criticise the UN for being dysfunctional. It's more symptomatic, arguably, of the world we live in. Sure, but I mean, compare and contrast what's going on with NATO.

15:29I mean, another organisation set up in the aftermath of the Second World War. The United States has made clear its view of that particular institution. What's been the response? Change the institution, Get everyone else to do more.

15:41Dominic Waghorn:Where's the change at the UN? That's a very good point. Very good point. And, you know, there's enormous pressure for reform. And I think those critics of the UN on the Republican right, they're not all as kind of cynical and potentially destructive as Donald Trump. And what they say, yes, is right. It is reforming. It's absurd to have situations where Iran, so repressive a regime, chairs a UN human rights body. I go to the UN General Assembly every year, which is the couple of weeks where Manhattan grinds to a halt because almost 200 world leaders and their diplomats descend on New York. And it's effectively now a talking shop.

16:18Dominic Waghorn:And every year, you hear the same call for reform. Every year, people say, this is the moment when the UN can be changed into something that can be useful. And it never leads to anything. The problem is, it's just got too many members, and it needs leadership. If you imagine a club of 200 people that's divided, that is like herding cats, you'd have to have a very united committee at the top of it to galvanise it, to turn it back into something useful. If you've got a committee where one of the committee members is attacking the neighbours, the other one thinks that's a good idea and doesn't believe in any of the principles of the organisation, let alone the committee, and another member that's kind of abstaining on all the key issues, you know, you can't see this getting any better.

17:00Dominic Waghorn:So, yeah, at the moment it's in a pretty low point, the UN. It does need reform. there's no real appetite or ability for it to reform itself. So you're kind of left sort of clutching at what is good about it, and that is the humanitarian mission. You know, you can say that the UN was useless at averting what's happened in Ukraine or reversing the Russian invasion, but it's been pretty effective at bringing humanitarian aid, at bringing aid and helping millions of refugees. It's been very effective for decades in the Middle East in bringing aid to the Palestinian refugees. It's fantastic at bringing aid.

17:31Dominic Waghorn:I mean, it's bureaucratic, it's lumbering, it could be a lot more effective, but bringing aid to natural disasters. So that's the best that could be said of it at the moment. I think the other point also is that in its very existence, it sort of embodies the high watermark of international organisation and unity. It's the closest the world has come to trying to get together and solve its problems. But it is very much a mid-20th century invention. I'm just pondering, if the UN didn't exist, would we set it up in its current form today? If the UN didn't exist today, would we invent it as it is? I don't think so.

18:08Dominic Waghorn:Well, is that would we want to or would we be able to? Two different questions, aren't they? But I think would we want to? I guess Liberal Democrats would because they believe that nations together are greater than some of their parts and the rest of it. And they would want to have a ball worked against the kind of more amoral, selfish kind of foreign policy priorities of China that would like to see the centre of gravity shift so they can dominate the world? Would we be able to? No, definitely not. I mean, absolutely not. I think that it was that moment when, in the wake of World War II, the world was getting together, thinking how it can solve its problems, that it was possible.

18:44Dominic Waghorn:I think now, absolutely. But there'd be no chance at all, even though many people would like the idea. Yeah, let's bring it back to Bernie. And Bernie, brilliant question. By the way, this has been a fascinating discussion. When Bernie says the UN feels toothless, she's got a point, doesn't she? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, Lord Mallett Brown, who was a key UN diplomat for a long time, he said recently, yes, at the moment, it's pretty useless. Yeah. And if you have a proponent of the organisations saying that, that's a fair verdict. You know, it's useful, as I say, in terms of humanitarian work, in terms of bringing aid.

19:18Dominic Waghorn:There are other agencies that could do that. It has to be said that Donald Trump has also totally decimated the aid effort America brings by cancelling. And so the UN is a very important kind of substitute for that. But yeah, to call it toothless is fair. But I think it's slightly misunderstanding the UN, in that you'd expect a world authority, a world government to have teeth, to have power. The UN is a soft power body. It's not NATO. It can't agree together to go and attack a country or to defend a country or to get involved in Libya to ultimately, you know, protect people there. But in an operation that could have been foreseen to bring down a leader.

19:55Dominic Waghorn:It is a soft power organisation. So in a way, maybe it shouldn't have teeth. Maybe it should have sort of soft gums. The way it works is for everyone getting together and work, and that gives it teeth. And if it can't get together, then it's not going to have real power and it's not going to have clout in the world. And the way things are at the moment, just because of the way it's made up and who's in charge, that is the fundamental problem. And that's the other big question I think is, could you ever reform it so those five permanent members who've been in the job and blocking beds for decades could you change that should britain give up its seat so another country could bring sort of fresh blood to that committee at the top of the club unlikely to happen but it's something that's worth considering definitely dom always a pleasure having you on the podcast thanks very much thanks neil thanks bernie thanks to dom and of course to bernie for suggesting the un in the first place.

20:45Hope you enjoyed it. You too can submit your ideas for future episodes or indeed your thoughts on today's Be Like Bernie and email us why at sky.uk. We're back again tomorrow.

21:06I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy u-turns we're on it before it breaks we take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening smart insight clear analysis in your feeds by 7 45 a.m so you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in british politics hit follow and listen to politics at sam and ann's wherever you get your podcasts