Reviewing the UN Charter

OCTOBER 24 is designated as United Nations (UN) Day. It marks the coming into force of the treaty popularly known as the UN Charter in 1945. The primary objectives of the charter, contained in its Preamble, are to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, to reaffirm “faith in fundamental human rights” and to promote “social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”. Today, these objectives appear to be jeopardised by an increasingly ineffective UN. Is it time to review provisions of the charter to reform the UN?

P5 has been helpless in resolving over 50 conflicts in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe, currently on the UNSC’s agenda.

The UN itself rests on three broad pillars of peace/security, socio-economic development and human rights. Since its inception, public perception of the UN has been dominated by its role in peace/security. This has distracted attention from the UN’s significant successes in helping its member-states achieve socio-economic development and uphold fundamental human rights and freedoms.

The “primary responsibility” to “maintain international peace and security” is given by Article 24 of the Charter to the UN Security Council (UNSC). Under Article 25, decisions of the UNSC are binding on all member-states of the UN. Under Article 27.3, these decisions require the “concurring votes” (popularly known as the veto) of its non-elected five permanent members (P5), designated under Article 23 as China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The veto was not negotiated as part of the UN Charter. It was inserted into the treaty as a pre-condition by the US on behalf of the P5 while inviting countries to participate in the San Francisco Conference to negotiate and adopt the charter. The leader of the Indian delegation, Sir A Ramaswami Mudaliar, who signed the charter on behalf of India, is on record as having agreed to include the veto as a temporary “safeguard” mechanism “unwillingly given” in return for a commitment to have a review of all provisions of the charter 10 years after it came into effect, i.e. by 1955 (Article 109).

The downward slide in the UN’s peace/security pillar after the Cold War was explicitly recognised by world leaders who met at the UN’s 60th anniversary summit in September 2005. Their declaration, adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly (UNGA), called for “early reforms” of the UNSC to “make it more broadly representative, efficient and transparent and thus to further enhance its effectiveness and the legitimacy and implementation of its decisions.” Eighteen years later, this mandate remains unfulfilled, mainly on account of the opposition of the P5 to UNSC reform (although the P5 was party to the unanimous declaration).

While opposing UNSC reforms, the P5 continues to exacerbate the Council’s ineffectiveness. For example, despite adopting unanimous resolutions for a political settlement in Ukraine (UNSC resolution 2202, adopted on February 17, 2015) and Afghanistan (UNSC resolution 2513, adopted on March 10, 2020), the UNSC has not been held accountable so far for the non-enforcement of these decisions that has resulted in the suffering of millions of people.

The P5 has been helpless in resolving over 50 conflicts in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe, currently on the UNSC’s agenda. These include 12 conflicts where the UNSC has deployed 85,500 UN peacekeepers at an annual cost of $6.3 billion to create space for diplomatic negotiations. The number of people directly impacted by these conflicts has risen from 60 million in 2015 to 314 million in 2022.

Despite its growing ineffectiveness, the UNSC has sought to bring global challenges such as terrorism, digital issues and even climate change (for which the UN has a separate treaty framework, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) under its remit. The UNSC’s lack of expertise and resources has opened the door for non-UN actors like NATO to act unilaterally without the approval of the UNGA. This trend can fracture the effective functioning of the UN Charter.

The ineffectiveness of the UNSC has generated demands by an increasing number of UN member-states for “reformed multilateralism”. At its core, these demands seek to revitalise the UNSC through the “equitable representation” of additional member-states, particularly from developing countries, in the Council’s decision-making process.

As one of the original 50 members of the UN that signed the UN treaty on June 26, 1945, in San Francisco, India’s objective is to reform, but not replace, the UN. India’s holistic approach is built on the acknowledged interlinkage between peace/security and development, bringing a “human-centric” perspective into multilateralism. India’s track record in the UN since 1963, when the first charter reforms for the UNSC and UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) were successfully voted by the UNGA, gives it credibility to play such a reformist role.

The UN’s core agenda today is Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted unanimously by the UNGA in September 2015, this universally applicable framework meshes peace/security with development to prioritise enhanced and equal participation by developing countries (SDG 16.8) in multilateral decision-making, particularly in the UNSC. Agenda 2030 commits to ensuring multilateral financial flows and transfer of appropriate technologies through partnerships (SDG 17) to implement the SDGs. It upholds core human rights such as eradicating poverty (SDG 1), providing food security (SDG 2), health (SDG 3), education (SDG 4), and gender equality (SDG 5), while committing to reduce inequalities (SDG 10). A reformed UN needs to integrate these commitments into its charter provisions.

How can these amendments to the UN Charter be made? Article 109 of the charter anticipated a review of the treaty through a General Conference of the UN. A decision to convene such a conference requires a two-third majority vote in the UNGA and nine affirmative votes in the UNSC (without any veto power for the P5).

As India prepares to participate in the UN’s Summit of the Future in September 2024, it is important to keep this framework in mind. As recommended by the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board in April this year, the summit must recommend convening a General Conference of the UN to make the organisation “fit for purpose” for the 21st century. The 80th anniversary of the UN in 2025 is an appropriate occasion to hold this conference.