Disclaimer: The author is currently an intern for the United Nations within the Department of Peace Operations. This article was written by the author entirely in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are entirely the author's own and do not reflect the view of the Department of Peace Operations or the United Nations as a whole.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022 it was one of the most geopolitically destabilizing events since the end of the Cold War. Every major international organization and national government has been challenged and forced to re-evaluate its role in an increasingly dangerous world. NATO has begun to add traditionally neutral Sweden and Finland to bolster their eastern flank, while the European Union has organized severe sanctions against Russia and temporarily resettled millions of Ukrainian refugees. No organization has perhaps faced as much criticism as the UN. The popular perception that the UN has been impotent in Ukraine and gridlocked elsewhere because of great power conflict couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite the looming threat of a Russian veto, the UN has been able to help Ukraine as well as conducting business as usual elsewhere. While there is room for improvement, this success should be greater recognized.
In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the criticism of the UN was harsh. Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council charged with upholding the UN Charter, had blatantly violated the Charter with the UN wholly unable to prevent it. One observer described it as an “extraordinary failure of the UN Security Council to live up to its primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security.” Another said that there is “no better example of the United Nations’ failure to live up to its founding ideal.” A third argued that the UN “became a forum of superpower rivalry.”
This has been accompanied by predictions that the UN will become increasingly dysfunctional and unresponsive to international needs and calls for the UN to either be seriously reformed or replaced entirely. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on the UN to boot Russia from its permanent seat on the Security Council, and the UN general assembly has passed a resolution mandating they meet after a veto. This has been accompanied by more outlandish proposals to disband the UN entirely and create a successor organization based exclusively around democratic states. In the short term, there were grim predictions for UN effectiveness. Seasoned UN observer Richard Gowan argued “the Security Council (is) facing a period of increasing fragmentation and paralysis.”
The UN, however, has been able to beat back these excessively pessimist predictions. In Ukraine, the UN under Secretary-General António Guterres has been able to organize humanitarian aid for Ukrainian civilians, mediate several key agreements that have helped reduce the potential international impacts of the conflict, and galvanize international opinion against Russia in the UN General Assembly. Outside of Ukraine, Russia and the other great powers have shown a remarkable ability to cooperate through the UN on other international issues such as the Afghan crisis, despite massive disagreements over Ukraine.
With regards to the Ukraine war, the UN and its various organs and agencies have proven surprisingly able to reduce the conflict’s human suffering, despite the ever-present threat of a Russian veto on their activities. While these efforts have so far been unable to end the conflict entirely, they still show that the UN can provide value during a crisis.
Guterres, has emerged as a key part of the shuttle diplomacy system that allows for Russo-Ukrainian negotiations. For instance, he visited both Moscow and Kyiv in April in an attempt to broker a ceasefire. While this effort failed, it positioned the Secretary-General so he could negotiate two important agreements between the two states. First, he arranged for a UN-led civilian evacuation mission from the besieged city of Mariupol. The UN and the Red Cross would evacuate over 600 civilians on May 12th, only a few weeks after the Secretary-General's visit. In July, the UN and the Turkish government would broker a deal that let several Russian and Ukrainian ports export wheat and other agricultural products to the rest of the world. While the implementation of this deal has been at times shaky, the deal is critical. The war runs a significant risk of sparking famine and high food prices in the Global South, due to a previous inability to export grain from Russian and Ukrainian Black Sea ports. If this deal continues to hold, the risk of mass famine and food instability will be minimized throughout the world.
The UN has also been able to provide on the ground aid to those most affected by the conflict, Ukrainian civilians. The UN’s various humanitarian aid services, including the World Food Program (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO) amongst others, have provided basic services to over 11.5 million Ukrainians. The UN has provided over 250,000 children with education, over 1.5 million with food, and over 8.5 million with medical care as of September 14th. This is despite the fact that the Russian government, which has frequently attacked civilians over the course of the conflict, has significant influence on where and how the UN operates as a result of the country’s permanent membership on the UNSC.
Russia doesn’t, however, have veto power over the UN General Assembly. The General Assembly, which doesn’t have the ability to make legally enforceable resolutions like the Security Council, is still a key way to gauge international opinion. The general assembly acted swiftly following Russia’s February invasion. The General Assembly took advantage of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 (the “Uniting for Peace '' resolution), which lets the general assembly begin an emergency session if the P5 fails to act on a matter of international security. This was the first time that “Uniting for Peace '' was activated since 1997. The General Assembly would pass General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1, which deplored Russia’s invasion and demanded they withdraw their forces from Ukraine. The actual vote was a disaster for Russia, with 141 states voting in support and only five opposed. This decisive vote left Russia isolated diplomatically, and empowered the US and EU to further support Ukraine and sanction Russia safe in the knowledge that there would be little international backlash. While the UN has served a useful role within the Ukrainian conflict, its ability to manage conflict outside of Ukraine is also notable. Despite the frequently espoused new era of great power competition that has accompanied the Russian invasion, the UN has still been largely able to maintain its prior ability to manage international security.
Before the invasion, many international observers thought that Afghanistan would be the UN’s most pressing issue of 2022. The Taliban victory has caused a massive humanitarian and financial crisis throughout the country, the response to which has been constrained by an American unwillingness to recognize and (implicitly) assist the new Taliban regime. After the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, many observers worried that the UNSC would be unable to work together on Afghanistan. These fears came to a head in March, only a few weeks after the invasion, when the mandate for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) needed to be authorized. Despite concerns that the Russians might veto the extension, the Russians abstained and UNAMA was re-authorized with an expanded humanitarian and political mandate.
The UN has also been able to continue its peace and security functions even when there is a direct Russian interest. The Russian mercenary Wagner Group is currently highly active in Mali, where they are supporting the military junta and frequently massacre civilians, The military regime, with the support of Russia, has begun to move away from its traditional security partners and limit the ability of the local UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, to protect civilians and monitor human rights abuses. Given that MINUSMA is frequently in conflict with the Russian-backed Malian military regime, a Russian veto of the operation would be in its interests. However, MINUSMA was reauthorized in June, with Russia and China abstaining. While the resolution did little to improve MINUSMA capabilities, the fact that it passed at all shows that the UN can still pass meaningful resolutions in a post-Ukraine world.
After the invasion, the permanent member of the Security Council decided to pursue a strategy of “compartmentalization.” While the P5 would trade sanctions and extraordinarily harsh language over Ukraine, they agreed to try to avoid letting that “poison the well” with other issues. UN observer Richard Gowan, who previously said “the Security Council (is) facing a period of increasing fragmentation and paralysis,” now argues that compartmentalization appears to have largely worked. This is because doing so remains in both the national interests of Russia, America, and Europe. For American and Europe, it continues to let the UN continue an agenda they broadly support. For Russia, it keeps diplomatic channels open, prevents further international isolation, and lets them influence UN operations by threatening, but not using, the veto. While the situation in Ukraine demonstrates the continued limited ability of the UN to intervene in a conflict where a P5 state is a party to the conflict, its action outside of Ukraine shows that it still has its uses.
While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most destabilizing international event in decades, it isn’t unprecedented in the UN’s history. Nearly two decades prior, another permanent member of the Security Council launched an invasion of another state in brazen violation of the UN Charter. While the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine have several key differences, they sparked similar outcries and criticisms of the UN. In the decades since the war, however, the UN has been able to support peace in war torn countries, provide humanitarian assistance to millions, and foster economic development. It’s important to keep these successes in mind as we visualize the role of the UN in a post-invasion world order.