Henry Huiyao Wang is the founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization, a leading Chinese nongovernmental think-tank based in Beijing accredited with UN special consultative status.

The world still needs the United Nations—but the United Nations Security Council needs reform even more. No institution possesses greater legitimacy or global reach, yet none faces a sharper credibility challenge. The central issue is not whether the UN still matters, but whether its most powerful organ, the Security Council, can adapt to a reality it was never designed to govern.

“After more than 30 years, Security Council reform remains simultaneously the UN’s most widely recognized necessity and its most politically elusive objective” | Source: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

This need for reform isn’t new. Scarcely months after the Cold War was laid to rest, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 47/62, explicitly calling for reform of an institution that was already seen as out of step with the emerging realities of a new era. Yet the “end of history” has come and gone. The era defined by Washington’s hegemonic breakout is at its end. Buried with it is the unipolar order based on the comparative “hyperpower” of the United States.

For the Secretaries-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon, and now António Guterres, reforming the Security Council has been the United Nations’ great institutional white whale—named, pursued, but as of yet never realized.

Now we stand on the precipice of a new era in global politics, one defined by a return to a multipolar system and even further removed from the Cold War than America’s unipolar moment. Yet the core dysfunctions remain unresolved.

The Security Council was designed for a world shaped by World War II, reflecting the balance of power among the victors and the strategic assumptions of 1945. Its structure has remained static since 1965, with the five permanent members (P5) and ten rotating seats still resembling that pivotal moment after the defeat of the Axis Powers. Yet the world the Council governs no longer bears resemblance to this old age. The center of economic gravity has moved southward, geopolitical power is diffuse, and global influence is no longer the exclusive domain of a handful of states. At the same time, the Council is increasingly beset by paralysis—its decisions are stalled by entrenched rivalries, veto brinkmanship, and procedural gridlock.

Meanwhile, the threats facing the modern world—ranging from regional conflicts, transnational terrorism, cybersecurity crises, pandemics, and climate destabilization—demand faster, more cooperative, and more legitimate multilateral action than the current system can reliably deliver.

The UN faces two core and interconnected challenges: a Security Council increasingly disconnected from contemporary global realities, and a veto system that enables persistent deadlock. Accordingly, the pathway forward requires two intertwined reforms tackling its structural and procedural dimensions. Structurally, the Council must expand its membership to better reflect today’s distribution of global power and representation. Procedurally, it must establish a mechanism to curb unilateral use of the veto, ensuring that no single state can indefinitely block an emerging international consensus.

The urgency of such reform cannot be overstated. Strong global governance is needed now more than ever, yet the Security Council is failing to fulfill its foundational role as a stabilizing force. Paradoxically, the root of today’s paralysis—and the Council’s inability to properly represent today’s world—can be traced back to the very compromise that enabled the UN’s creation. To secure the participation of the post-war victors, the five permanent members—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China—were granted unilateral veto power over international peace and security decisions.

Indeed, to borrow the words of Finnish President Alexander Stubb: “If countries from the Global South, from Latin America, from Africa, from Asia, do not get agency in the system, they will turn their backs on the United Nations.” These challenges go beyond institutional efficiency, threatening the UN’s own global legitimacy.

A System at Risk of Breakdown

Relations are as strained as at any time since the end of the Cold War. What is now happening today in Ukraine and Gaza lives in billions of people’s living rooms, played out on screens and electronic devices. With growing numbers of flashpoints and deepening divisions among the permanent members, what was once an intentional dysfunction is now edging closer toward outright paralysis. The UN Security Council is increasingly incapable of fulfilling its core mandates: maintaining peace, authorizing sanctions, responding to humanitarian disasters, or holding perpetrators of war crimes accountable.

It may seem like we have been here before—during the height of the Cold War and the tense quarreling it engendered—but we haven’t. The bipolar nature of the Cold War and the ensuing U.S. hegemonic period both served to create a sort of restraint on action, where from Suez to Kargil the logic of deterrence—and then preponderance—ensured that instability was largely confined to horrible but limited wars.

That structural restraint is at an end. The power structures that produced those circumstances no longer exist. Now we live in a multipolar age where actors have a freer hand than ever. Armed conflicts are once again escalating in number and intensity, exploiting gray zones, spilling across borders, and drawing in new waves of proxy actors. Meanwhile, the return of great-power competition, accompanied by the breakdown of arms control agreements and the weaponization of trade, is unraveling the diplomatic fabric that once held rivalries in check. The idea of a shared, rules-based global order is under threat. It once again risks being replaced by zero-sum calculations and strategic decoupling.

In this volatile cauldron, the frequent use of the veto has significantly undermined the authority of the UN Security Council. The obstruction of collective action has allowed responses to the urgent crises of our time to fall to the wayside with little recourse. Recent events highlight the impact: Russia—often as the sole dissenting member—has consistently blocked any meaningful Security Council response to the war in Ukraine since 2022, despite widespread international condemnation and urgent humanitarian need. Meanwhile, the United States exercised its own course of unilateral vetoes to prevent the adoption of resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the conflict in Gaza. The United States rejected Brazil’s October 2023 humanitarian resolution, blocked a December 2023 ceasefire appeal even after the UN Secretary-General invoked Article 99, and again vetoed Algeria’s February 2024 ceasefire resolution.

Worse still, the numbers and true impact of the veto are obscured. Its looming presence ensures that many resolutions are killed behind closed doors in private conversation, as those drafting the documents are quietly informed that their resolutions will be vetoed should they choose to push them forward. Those that survive are instead changed to remove language disapproved of by P5 members.

This erosion of consensus extends beyond decision-making paralysis in the Security Council. Fundamental principles of international order—sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the rule of law—are being reinterpreted or selectively applied. Once considered universal norms, these principles are now frequently the subject of geopolitical games and rhetorical appropriation. This normative fragmentation further undermines global governance and the Security Council’s capacity to act as a guardian of peace.

Amid polarization, there remain strong, overlapping interests in preserving the Council’s role as a platform for international coordination. For the established powers, the UN Security Council still provides a legitimate channel for shaping global security agendas and protecting strategic interests. For emerging powers and regional leaders, the Council remains a vital arena to project diplomatic influence, voice normative claims, and participate in rulemaking.

Thus, while all can see the UN Security Council’s flaws, we must also recognize that there is no real substitute for it. Simply allowing the Security Council to drift into irrelevance would merely remove the last vestiges of coordinated responses at the highest level. The challenge, then, is not whether reform is needed, but how to execute it if the UN Security Council is to retain its legitimacy and authority over a rapidly evolving international system. As President Xi Jinping recently emphasized in launching China’s Global Governance Initiative, the international community must advance toward a fairer and more inclusive multilateral system—one without double standards and obstructive house rules—with the United Nations at its core. Yet despite these alarming trends, the UN Security Council is not beyond saving. Amid polarization, there remain strong, overlapping interests in preserving the Council’s role as a platform for international coordination. For the established powers, the UN Security Council still provides a legitimate channel for shaping global security agendas and protecting strategic interests. For emerging powers and regional leaders, the Council remains a vital arena to project diplomatic influence, voice normative claims, and participate in rulemaking.

The Historical Precedent

For all the institutional evolution the UN has achieved, the core of its decision-making system remains largely frozen in time. Since the creation of the Open-Ended Working Group on Security Council representation in 1993, nearly every serious reform proposal has stalled. The G4 push for new permanent seats, the African Union’s Ezulwini Consensus, and Kofi Annan’s 2004 High-Level Panel recommendations each failed to yield consensus. The intergovernmental negotiations launched in 2009 have kept the issue alive but delivered little beyond procedural stalemate. Even narrower, less politically disruptive efforts have foundered. These failures include the French-Mexican initiative to voluntarily suspend the veto in cases of mass atrocity and the S-5 small-state campaign for greater transparency in the Council’s working methods. After more than 30 years, Security Council reform remains simultaneously the UN’s most widely recognized necessity and its most politically elusive objective.

This stagnation stands in contrast to the institution’s broader record of adaptation. The UN has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to evolve with emerging global demands. In 1965, member states expanded the Security Council from 11 to 15 seats. Additionally, they grew the Economic and Social Council from 18 members to 27, and later to a total of 54. The post-Cold War period accelerated reform further. Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s Agenda for Peace (1992) established the modern framework for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peacebuilding. Kofi Annan reorganized the UN around the three pillars of peace and security, development, and human rights. He oversaw a wave of institutional innovation: the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission, the replacement of the Commission on Human Rights with the Human Rights Council, the establishment of the Deputy Secretary-General post, the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm, the UN Global Compact, and the Millennium Development Goals.

Reform has continued into the twenty-first century. The year 2010 saw the creation of UN Women, consolidating four separate agencies. In 2015, the Millennium Development Goals transitioned into the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. In 2016, the General Assembly and Security Council formally reframed peacebuilding as a system-wide UN responsibility. Beginning in 2018, Secretary-General António Guterres launched reform initiatives to streamline the UN’s peace and security architecture, development system, and internal management. Yet for all their importance, these changes have been operational, structural, or managerial—improving how the UN works without altering who ultimately makes the most consequential decisions.

Moreover, the UN has proven capable of procedural reinvention when it is confronted by crises. For example, when Cold War rivalry made the Chapter VII collective security system functionally inoperable, the UN created a workaround. The “Uniting for Peace” resolution empowered the General Assembly to act when the Security Council was deadlocked, recommending collective measures in the absence of consensus among the permanent five. Its first major test came in 1956, during the Suez Crisis. Back then, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld called an emergency General Assembly session, resulting in the creation of UNEF I, the UN’s first peacekeeping mission. The operation did not resemble the Charter’s envisioned Article 42 enforcement mechanism; rather, it pioneered a new model built on consent, neutrality, and cooperative deployment. Crucially, it succeeded in bypassing a deadlocked Security Council and bringing about peace—then guaranteeing it by physically interposing forces and monitoring compliance. It established a precedent that research has since validated: UN peacekeeping improves outcomes and reduces violence.

Taken together, the UN has shown it can expand, innovate, reform, and even redesign how it implements peace. What it has not yet done is reform the political core that decides when to act at all. The system has evolved around the Security Council, but not within it—and that must change going forward.

Marching Towards Reform

To realize this global vision, the Security Council must enact structural and procedural reform. First, the Council needs to expand its membership to better reflect the world of today. Second, it should develop a mechanism to limit the use of unilateral vetoes to prevent a single P5 state from thwarting an international consensus. Together, these reforms can revitalize the Security Council’s credibility and capacity, transforming it from a forum of gridlock into a more responsive and effective guardian of peace.

The Security Council’s current structure—five permanent members and 10 rotating nonpermanent members—reflects, at best, the geopolitical realities at the time of the last set of Security Council reforms in 1965. This structure should be updated by adding a new class of associate permanent member seats.

To that end, all current G21 (formerly G20) members should be given a seat on an expanded Security Council. This would eliminate the 10 existing rotating seats and create 16 new permanent associate seats. These new states would not have an individual veto, but together with the other four permanent members, they could override the use of the unilateral veto. This would preserve the institutional legacy of the original five full members while elevating voices that reflect today’s multipolar economic and political order. In doing so, it would enhance the Council’s legitimacy, improve regional representation, and embed the Security Council more firmly within the real architecture of the current global order.

Previous reform efforts have stumbled over the question of how to allocate new seats in the Council. Using the G21 thus offers an elegant solution. It is composed of an even mix of developed and developing countries. Using it as the basis for reform addresses some of the underrepresentation of the global south while still recognizing the enduring power of incumbent powers. Today, the G21 members account for over 85 percent of global GDP and have already helped coordinate multilateral responses to some of the world’s most pressing economic challenges. Under this new model, the expanded UN Security Council would consist of: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This is along with the African Union and the European Union, which would each have one collective vote.

The second reform necessary to restore a credible Security Council is a procedural one. The unilateral veto has created paralysis in the Council, allowing urgent humanitarian measures to be stalled indefinitely. To this day, the veto has been used a staggering total of 323 times in less than 80 years, at an average rate of four vetoes a year. This includes 159 vetoes by the Soviet Union or Russian Federation, 93 by the United States, 32 by the UK, 21 by China, and 18 by France.

Even seemingly straightforward matters, such as the admission of new members, can become mired in contention, as the Soviet Union demonstrated early in the Cold War and as the United States demonstrates today in blocking Palestinian membership.

Previous reform initiatives have attempted to tackle the veto problem. The aforementioned French-Mexican proposal, first advanced in 2013, called for permanent members to voluntarily suspend their veto in cases of mass atrocities. The Accountability, Coherence, and Transparency Group later advanced a code of conduct, now supported by more than 120 states, that urges P5 states to refrain from using their vetoes in situations of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes.

But a more substantial fix is required. To solve the problems created by the unilateral veto, we must weaken it by instituting a supermajority override. Under this proposal, if over two-thirds of the expanded Security Council—that is to say, 15 of its members—and two-thirds of the General Assembly voted to override the veto of a single P5 member, the resolution in question would pass.

After all, if two-thirds of both bodies can agree to override a single P5 member veto, it clearly represents a broad international consensus. A single P5 member should not be able to block a UNSC resolution passed by all other permanent members, two-thirds of the 16 permanent associate members, and two-thirds of the 193 members in the General Assembly.

This new proposal would benefit countries in the global south that previously were unable to meaningfully take part in international rulemaking and security due to inviolable vetoes from above. At the same time, there is no reason for existing P5 members to fear the consequences of this reform. The P5 would still be able to impose a binding veto on any resolution so long as at least two members were in agreement. This would offer some reassurance whilst preventing a single power from derailing collective action. It would succeed in raising the political cost of casting a veto in the first place.

This simple change would have immediate ramifications. From Yemen to Gaza, it would open the door to resolving conflicts that have gone from ugly to horrific. The removal of the unilateral veto would break down the barrier that has all too often kept UN peacekeepers and relief efforts from addressing some of the worst tragedies in history.

Reforming the UN would signal a renewed commitment to the founding ideals of the United Nations—peace, cooperation, justice, human rights, and shared responsibility. The result would be a Security Council better suited for the present and better prepared for the future.

Back to Table of Contents