On October 24th, 1945, weeks after the completion of the bloodiest, most brutal conflict in history, World War II, the United Nations (UN) was created to maintain international peace, protect human rights, deliver humanitarian aid, uphold international law, and promote sustainable development. With 51 member states working together, it seemed as if nations across the globe were finally learning from their mistakes and beginning the long journey to recovery by prioritizing security and stability. Despite the failure of its predecessor, the League of Nations, the UN seemed to succeed, eventually gathering 193 member states under its banner. It was proclaimed the paragon of justice, the path to a brighter future without the threat of war. Unfortunately, this was not to be. On numerous occasions, the UN has failed to preserve its standards, especially in Africa. Despite its somber motto of “Never Again” following the Holocaust, the organization’s optimism is cruelly ironic for nations such as Rwanda and Sudan, which have suffered genocides as recently as 1994 and 2003, respectively. In addition, reports on UN peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, even with unprecedented international support, cite daily rapes, deaths, and violations of international agreements with neighboring African countries. 

           The UN’s myriad of failures were inevitable according to theories at the forefront of international relations, especially realism. Born of philosophers such as Thucydides and Thomas Hobbes, realism remains one of the primary methods of explaining political relations between nations. One form of realism, neorealism, highlights that nation-states always act based on self-interest, rather than the collective good or the concerns of other nation-states, since the international structure is anarchic and decentralized. This viewpoint sheds valuable light on the UN and its actions. As a result, the organization is often incapable, and at times achieves the opposite, of resolving conflict across the world, particularly Africa. For these reasons, as well as for growing corruption and administrative shortcomings, the UN should be dissolved. 

           The UN’s neorealistic characteristics have made it both unwilling and unable to resolve crises in Africa. On January 20, 1994, before Rwanda’s ethnic conflict broke out, the leader of UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire, received notice of bloodshed planned against the Tutsi minority. Dallaire informed the UN and, to his shock, was forbidden to take any countermeasures. Michael Barnett, a professor on a fellowship at the UN throughout the massacres, explains, “After two weeks of debate, Washington compromised and agreed to a token U.N. presence. The result: The U.N. Security Council voted to reduce Dallaire's already small force by 90 percent.” [1] Among the UN’s many goals, preventing genocide, first recognized as an international crime by the General Assembly in 1946, was a founding one. The world knew of the threat of genocide in Rwanda, but the UN’s member states ignored the problem, prioritizing other global issues over protecting Rwandans. Their reluctance originated in the infamous Battle of Mogadishu and the ensuing Somalia debacle, which sapped the faith of many countries, especially the US, in the UN: 

           “The American decision to withdraw crippled the Somalia operation and made all UN 

           peacekeeping suspect in the eyes of Americans. ... [Secretary-General] 

           Boutros-Ghali had scant success trying to persuade other countries to take the place 

           of the Americans.” [2]

After the disaster in Somalia, UN member states declined to protect Rwanda, seeking their own interests over those of multilateral organizations. Although the UN’s goal is to maintain security and peace across the world, its members feared more failure in Africa, which in turn would result in loss of life, respect, and political clout. By voting to withdraw peacekeeping troops from Rwanda, influential nations, especially the five permanent members of the Security Council, discouraged other nations from contributing. Calculating the risk to outweigh their humanitarian commitment, the “united” nations pursued their separate agendas, abandoning the Rwandans in their moment of need. This negligence was made possible by the organization’s structure: UN states are sovereign and of equal authority, with no higher figure than the Security Council to supervise the international community. Moreover, Douglas Jehl, foreign editor of the Washington Post, highlights:

           “Trying to avoid the rise of moral pressure to stop the mass killing in Rwanda, the 

           Clinton Administration has instructed its spokesmen not to describe the deaths there 

           as genocide[…]That decision has left the Administration at odds with the 

           Secretary-General of the United Nations and a cast of distinguished experts[...]” [3] 

Instead of leading by example, the US publicly defied the UN secretary-general and shirked its duty. For decades the US had proved willing to conduct proxy wars in countries with oil or other resources, but it saw no cause to assist Rwanda but preserving peace and stability. To justify its choice, it had to minimize Rwanda’s problem. Article II of the Genocide Convention of 1948 states that “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group.” [4] By deciding not to label the Rwandan crisis a “genocide,” the US and its UN fellows could evade fulfilling their obligations. This lack of candor suggests that, absent supranational authority, nations will always prioritize their own interests over others’. A neorealist look at the UN’s failures, particularly in Rwanda, exposes the organization’s impotence and supports its dissolution. 

           Moreover, much of the UN’s incompetence can be traced to a festering corruption. In November 1999, after the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement attempted to end the Second Congo War between the Democratic Republic of Congo and five neighboring countries, the UN peacekeeping initiative MONUC was established in the DRC to see the agreement safely implemented. After a decade of struggle, MONUC was altered to MONUSCO to reflect a new phase in the country’s development, resulting in the UN’s largest operation to date, deploying over 20,000 personnel. Despite this unprecedented display of strength, the UN peacekeepers failed to support the nation, mainly because of corruption. In an interview with PBS’s Leila Miller, Ramita Navai, director of FRONTLINE documentary UN Sex Abuse Scandal, which focuses on countries like the DRC, explains,

           “If you’re a military peacekeeper, it is the responsibility of the troop-contributing 

           country to try you, to convict you, to hold you to account, because the UN doesn’t 

           have jurisdiction. The military peacekeeper, whether he’s a uniformed policeman, 

           military police or soldier, usually simply gets kicked out of peacekeeping, sent back 

           to [his] country, gets a slap on the wrist.” [5]

Although the UN Charter states that the organization’s purpose is to “maintain international peace and security ... in conformity with the principles of justice and international law,” [6] the member states still abuse extraterritoriality to remove offending peacekeepers before they can incur more shame. Blaming red tape for holding up prosecution, they essentially ignore their countrymen’s crimes, allowing not even gross injustice to distract them from their distinct agendas. Aware that sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers would damage relations with the countries receiving assistance, troop-contributing states placed their own needs first. Without supranational consequences, they could ignore the UN’s mission and act independently without a thought for the victims. The Associated Press draws further attention to the corruption of UN peacekeepers in Africa: “Of the 2,000 sexual abuse and exploitation complaints made against UN peacekeepers and personnel worldwide over the past 12 years, more than 700 occurred in Congo.” [7] The sheer volume of these cases, especially in the DRC, has damaged public trust in the UN. Rather than punish each other for scandals, member states cover them up without fear of sanction. Unopposed by any widespread effort, such deception is still impacting thousands of people. Far from implementing or even encouraging rectitude, the UN has erected a façade for its members to conduct their crimes behind. Leery of the UN’s legitimizing brand, Hans Morgenthau emphasized that this type of corruption was inevitable: “All nations are tempted—and few have been able to resist the power for long—to clothe their own aspirations and action in the moral purposes of the universe.” 

           Finally, the UN’s administrative shortcomings have also kept it from resolving conflicts in Africa, accentuating the need for a new system. The Security Council, one of six founding organs, is the most objectively powerful; “while other organs of the UN make recommendations to Member States, the Council alone has the power to [make] decisions which Member States are obligated to implement.” [8] Unlike the General Assembly, which heeds the voices of all 193 member states, the Security Council consists of five permanent members (P5) and ten temporary members that alternate after two-year terms. This imbalance, and the sluggishness it engenders, is emphasized in the Jurist, a legal news and research service: 

           “If permanent seats on the Security Council are supposed to be filled by those states 

           with the greatest capacity to ensure international peace and security (and the 

           legitimacy of that body’s resolutions are hinged to representativeness), adjustments 

           have been in order for quite a while [sic].” [9]

After the economic decline of powerhouses like Britain and France and the fall of the Soviet Union, one might expect the P5 to step down. Yet each clings to its precious veto, proving itself more loyal to its own interests than to the world’s. These five juggernauts—the US, the UK, France, China, and the Russian Federation—seized the UN’s reins before the other states could rebuild after the war, supplementing their political, military, and economic power with perpetual international authority. By this outdated reasoning, Germany and India deserve equal standing with the P5; that they don’t get it highlights the UN’s inability to adapt, another result of lacking a supranational supervisor. Moreover, with no new blood on the Security Council, old feuds do lasting damage. The ever-tense relationship between two P5 nations, the US and Russia, is emphasized in the Economic Times by Amit Kapoor, president of the India Council on Competitiveness: 

           “As US foreign policy was driven by curbing the spread of communism, it did not 

           recognise the legitimacy of the PRC and ROC continued to represent China at the 

           UNSC. In January 1950, the USSR even walked out of the UN in protest against the 

           US refusal to recognise the PRC.” [10] 

After the Chinese Revolution of 1949, the democratic US rejected the communist People’s Republic of China, exacerbating tensions with communist Russia. Subsequently, President Truman approached India, a potential democratic ally in Asia, to supplant China on the Security Council: “[America proposed] the idea of unseating China from the UNSC and putting India in her place.” [11] The US used India as a pawn in its scheme to contain the spread of communism. Although India had many valid reasons for joining the P5, the US considered it only when the risk of losing influence to the Soviet Union seemed to outweigh that of disrupting the Security Council’s fragile power dynamic. Additionally, Russia didn’t help the situation: when the US continued to recognize the ROC as China’s legitimate government, Russia walked out instead of settling the dispute through mutual concession. Both superpowers attended to their own interests rather than providing a united front for the world. A supranational supervisor might have secured their cooperation, but without one, it was impossible. 

           The United Nations has proved unequal, and at times outright inimical, to its mission of resolving conflicts throughout the world. Its past impotence, growing corruption, and administrative shortcomings demand that it be replaced with something better. For 74 years the UN has offered stopgap solutions to complicated situations. To its credit, the institution has managed to improve education in many nations and to aid many refugees. For bigger projects, though, the organization is effective only when the P5’s agendas all align, a rare occurrence when the P5 states are themselves involved in the controversies they attempt to solve. The first step toward reforming the UN must therefore be to disband it. One possible direction is to create a successor organization, inspired by the UN’s founding goals, that will meet the current global situation by placing its members under a supranational authority. This system would include a permanent nine-member council that will guide the decision-making process, composed of rotating members with fixed terms. A member nation will join this council more often if it demonstrates economic stability and a consistent commitment to the organization, but every nation will get a turn on the council. Within this council, the judicial, executive, and legislative roles will each be assigned to a trio of members. The changing locus of international power and presence of supranational authority will prevent impunity, eliminating the corruption of member states. The incentive to work toward a spot on the rotating council, and the prospect of punishment by the supranational authority and rotating leader states, urges the members to uphold the collective good, both domestically and internationally. In this neorealist fashion, nation-states pursuing their own interests, rather than pretending to be united, help the world move forward. They will act more efficiently and create longer-term solutions in the countries where they operate. If the presiding body cannot reach a conclusive agreement regarding certain issues, a weighted voting system with all of the UN’s member states can be initiated by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly. The factors determining voting power will include economic contribution to the UN based on a fixed percentage of a state’s GDP, for states should be rewarded for committing to the UN rather than for merely being wealthy, as well as a state’s population, for a larger representation of the international community should receive a greater share of the votes. Finally, an allotment of basic votes to every state will encourage a greater sense of sovereign equality for smaller states, making all voices audible, if not equally loud. With these guidelines, the division between large states and small states will be bridged. Overall, only through the drastic improvement of the current UN system can the motto of “Never Again” be declared with confidence.