"UN Faces Deepening Trust Deficit Amid Reform Calls"
Veto
power of a Security Council permanent member to block a substantive resolution under Article 27.
Uniting for Peace Resolution
1950 mechanism allowing the General Assembly to act when the Council is vetoed into deadlock.
The United Nations was established in 1945, after the Second World War, as successor to the failed League of Nations. Its purpose was to prevent conflict through structured dialogue and international law, not by removing power politics but by giving it rules. The core institutional design reflects this compromise. The UN Security Council gives veto power to five permanent members, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China, under Article 27 of the UN Charter. This veto was meant to keep the major powers invested in the system. Over time, it has instead become the biggest source of institutional deadlock, freezing Council action on crises from Ukraine to the Middle East, largely because rivalry between the US-led bloc and the Russia-China alignment blocks consensus at exactly the moments the Council's mandate matters most.
The General Assembly has grown frustrated with this deadlock. In 2022, it adopted Resolution A/76/262, which requires any permanent member casting a veto to appear before the Assembly and explain the decision. This does not remove the veto, but it makes its use politically costlier. It extends an older idea. The 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution already allows the General Assembly to recommend collective action when the Security Council is deadlocked by a veto, though it has been used sparingly. Structural proposals, such as the G4 nations (India, Brazil, Germany and Japan) seeking permanent seats and the African Union's Ezulwini Consensus, have been under negotiation for over two decades without consensus, because any change to the Council's composition itself needs unanimous P5 approval.
Beyond the Security Council, the UN's credibility problem has a quieter second source: how its bureaucracy is staffed and financed. Much of the UN's regular budget comes from assessed contributions, but a growing share of its actual programme work runs on voluntary, extra-budgetary funding tied to specific donors. A 2024 report of the ACABQ (Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions), the UN's highest financial oversight body, found that in one agency, eight of nine technical experts recruited were sponsored by a single government. Donor-linked staffing raises doubts about whether policy advice given to recipient countries is genuinely neutral, and it makes the bureaucracy wary of alienating major funders even on conflict-prevention questions. …
The reform process in the United Nations remains unresolved, because of the delicate imbalance of East and West and entanglement of the USA vs. Russo-Chinese alliance. Examine and critically evaluate the East-West policy confrontations in this regard.
Consider the following statements regarding a 2022 UN General Assembly resolution on the Security Council veto:
1.It abolished the veto power of the Security Council's permanent members.
2.It requires a permanent member casting a veto to explain its use before the General Assembly.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Match List I (UN mechanism/body) with List II (its defining feature) and select the correct answer using the codes below:
List I:
A.Uniting for Peace Resolution
B.ACABQ
C.G4 nations
D.Security Council veto
List II:
1.UN's highest financial oversight body
2.Allows the General Assembly to recommend action when the Security Council is deadlocked
3.India, Brazil, Germany and Japan seeking permanent Security Council seats
4.Power held by five permanent Security Council members under Article 27
Which Article of the UN Charter grants veto power to the permanent members of the Security Council?
With reference to the composition of United Nations civil service leadership, consider the following statements:
1.Developing countries account for more than 80% of the world's population.
2.Developing countries hold a majority (more than 50%) of UN civil service leadership positions.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The 'Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions' (ACABQ) functions as:
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