Does the UN Work?

October 16, 2025

This week we talked about criticisms of the United Nations, because there are a lot of them.

We started with a discussion. Based on what you already know, what are some actions the UN has taken in the world? And since the UN has weaknesses, what do you think they might be? Everyone had to guess, and think about it from a country's point of view.

The UN's goals

Some people say the UN works and some say it doesn't. It does a lot: it has countless committees on different topics, and a big peacekeeping budget, with the U.S. paying the biggest share.

The UN Charter gives it four main goals:

Keep international peace and security.
Develop friendly relations between nations.
Help nations work together to solve problems.
Be a center where nations coordinate their actions to reach these goals.

The Security Council and the veto

The Security Council has five permanent members (the U.S., the UK, France, Russia, and China), and any one of them can veto a resolution. The veto is very controversial and not really fair, but it was a compromise that got the most powerful countries to join.

Many countries aren't happy with how the Security Council works. Russia (and the Soviet Union before it) and the U.S. have used the veto many times, sometimes in ways that seem unfair.

Successes and failures

Bosnia: during the war in the 1990s, including the siege of Sarajevo, UN peacekeepers were there, but some were taken hostage and used as human shields. Whether the UN helped or not is still debated.
Iraq and Kuwait: when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Security Council approved using force, leading to Operation Desert Storm. Most people agree the UN helped here.
Rwanda: during the 1994 genocide, the UN had a small peacekeeping force there but didn't send help. After a failed mission in Somalia the year before, countries didn't want to get involved.

The General Assembly

A common criticism is that the General Assembly has no real authority. Its resolutions aren't binding, and it keeps passing them without much follow-up.

But there are successes too. In 1993, at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, 171 countries with very different political systems agreed that human rights are universal. And the UN gives countries a formal place to work together that might not exist otherwise.

We also looked at a defense of the General Assembly: even a symbolic resolution matters, because it shows where the world stands.

Discussion questions

If you're a nation, at what point is your sovereignty more important than accepting aid?
Can a neutral force ever be effective, given how complicated geopolitics is?
How could the UN be set up so countries are more willing to let it get involved?
How can the UN be improved?