The Process of Reforming the United Nations

2031 Words5 Pages

The process of reforming the United Nations (UN) has been a highly debatable issue among the international community. Since the initial signing of the UN Charter in 1945, the world has changed dramatically as the UN is trying to regulate a forum that assesses and deals with global issues while also struggling to unite all 193 member states of the UN when some states have been seen to have conflicting ideas and personal agendas (Teng, 2003, pp. 2-3). This essay is targeted to highlight what I feel are the most pressing arguments for UN reform amongst the international community. This will be done by highlighting the problems and ongoing issues surrounding the lack of representation and P5 power of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), arguing that the UNSC is out of date and controlled egotistically. This essay will also highlight the humanitarian aspect of the UN and the role it plays in meeting and solving complex global problems. This will be done by showing reform propositions in the aforementioned councils in the UN in hopes of showing how reform will be achieved.
Although the UNSC was created in 1945, there has only been one noteworthy reform in its entire 69 year establishment. This was done in 1965 as a means to expand the Security Council from 11 to 15 members as well as the required majority from seven to nine. However, this was mainly due only to the rapid addition of around 53 member-states to the UN by 1963 (Diehl, 2005, p. 450). This is interesting as there are currently 193 member states apart of the UN but there has not been a significant Security Council reform in 53 years. This is interesting since the UN charter states that the UN is based on sovereign equality for all and the Security Council main goal is ...

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...ew York: Simon & Schuster.
Teng, M., 2003. United Nations Security Council Reform, Stanford: Stanford University.
Thakur, R., 2004. United Nations Security Council Reform. African Security Review, III(13), pp. 67-74.
Thakur, R. & Sidhu, W. P. S., 2006. The Iraq Crisis and World Order: Strutural, Institutional and Normative Challenges. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
UN Security Council, 1992. Resolution 767 (1992) Adopted by the Security Council at its 3101st meeting, on 27 July 1992, New York: United Nations.
United Nations, 1945. Charter of the United Nations and Statue of the International Court of Justice, San Francisco: United Nations.
Weiss, T. G., 2003. The Illusion of UN Security Council Reform. The Washington Quarterly, Volume 26, pp. 147-159.
Weiss, T. G., 2009. What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix it. 1st ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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