We would create it with fewer buildings and more Blue Helmets, with fewer secretariats and more UNICEF kitchens, and with a Security Council where a single state could not hijack world peace.
By Gustavo de Arístegui, as published by La Razón, 27 September, 2026
During the Cold War, and somewhat paradoxically, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was the
center of global diplomacy . The meetings held on the sidelines of the plenary were a hive of activity, proving extremely difficult for small and medium-sized countries to organize in an era without instant communication. Offices were improvised in the corridors, while the most powerful nations met discreetly, using all the resources at their disposal, in their permanent missions or at their ambassador’s residence. That Assembly served a purpose. The one that just held its 81st session in New York, under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation,” has served primarily to measure the extent of its decline.
The speeches
António Guterres, in his last high-level week before leaving office on December 31, called for a world built on interdependence and reminded the superpowers that their power is not so “super.” Barely an hour later, Donald Trump offered the opposite interpretation: that he has not promised force, but rather used it. The US president threatened to “annihilate” Iran if there is no agreement— an agreement he himself predicts will be reached after the November legislative elections—accused the Organization of imposing the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats, and lashed out at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The only tangible diplomatic news of the week was that his envoys met for three hours with Iranian officials on the sidelines of the Assembly. On the sidelines, as in the Cold War; not in the plenary, which no longer serves that purpose.
The exception, unanimously praised as the best speech of the session—for the level of the session, it should be noted—was that of the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb. He quoted Kofi Annan (“whatever our differences, we stand or fall together”) and framed the dilemma as a choice between cooperation and conflict. He called for a complete overhaul , a new San Francisco moment: at least two new permanent seats for Africa, two for Asia-Pacific, and one for Latin America; that no single state should have veto power ; and that any member of the Council who violates the Charter should have their voting rights suspended. Laudable, but asking the five permanent members to renounce their veto power is like asking them to amputate both arms. We will return to that point.
The decline in the quality of what were once political elites, now mere political classes, is one of the causes of this worsening situation. Imagine the corridors of the UN and the bilateral meetings with figures like Adenauer, De Gaulle, or Eisenhower, and closer to our time, Kohl, Mitterrand, Felipe González, or José María Aznar. It’s exactly the same as today.
A crisis of origin
The crisis of the United Nations is rooted in its origins, though not its stability: it began in San Francisco with the veto power granted to the victors of the war , and from there it has been in decline. Harry Truman himself acknowledged this when closing the Conference on June 26, 1945: the Charter, like the American Constitution, “will be expanded and improved over time,” since no one intended it to be a definitive or perfect instrument. Eighty-one years later, it remains virtually unchanged.
This inherent flaw was compounded by the institution’s growth in membership, powers, and specialized agencies: a veritable labyrinth of overlapping responsibilities and competition between bodies, and among their leaders, driven by often excessive ambitions and egos. The Secretary-General is not the head of state—thankfully—but the administration he leads with rather sweeping powers is, at best, and in most cases, mediocre in its functioning, if not simply incompetent. Guterres himself admitted to the Financial Times in August that the Security Council is “virtually paralyzed” by vetoes, especially those of the United States and Russia. A difficult epitaph for ten years in office.
What it costs and what is done
Figures circulating about the cost of the Organization vary widely, and it’s important to clarify them. The Secretariat’s regular budget—what member states pay in mandatory contributions—has been cut to approximately $3.24 billion for 2026, 15% less than in 2025, with an 18.8% reduction in jobs. This is because, in the words of the Secretary-General, the UN is in a “race to bankruptcy” if member states don’t pay on time; arrears alone at the end of 2025 totaled $760 million. Of that regular budget, roughly 70% is payroll, and the remaining 30% covers buildings, technology, security, conferences, translation, and travel. In short, the administrative heart of the UN is a payroll machine, with only a small remainder for general expenses.
It is a mistake, however, to deduce from this that the UN spends 70% on bureaucracy and 30% on aid. Humanitarian aid, refugees, food, and vaccines do not come from that budget, but from the voluntary contributions that fund the programs. If you look at the entire system, annual spending is around $67 billion, and almost half of that is humanitarian assistance. The problem, therefore, is not that the Organization is expensive in its raw form—the UN’s regular budget is less than that of many European cities—but that the money from membership fees is allocated almost entirely to a structure that duplicates functions, where agencies fight over responsibilities, and whose effectiveness is not audited based on results criteria.
What must be emphasized is that there are agencies that carry out exemplary work , with local officials and employees who are true unsung heroes , risking their lives in some of the most dangerous places in the world: UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), WFP (World Food Programme), and even the field missions of UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), WHO (World Health Organization), and UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). The contrast between these people and the corridors of the Secretariat in New York is the best proof that the problem is not the idea, but its structure.
Reforming the veto without asking for the impossible
This is where Stubb’s speech, for all its nobility, crashes against the Charter. Abolishing the veto requires amending Article 27.3, and Article 108 stipulates that any amendment requires a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of the member states, including all permanent members of the Security Council. In other words, the five permanent members would have to ratify their own decapitation. The same applies to suspending the voting rights of any state that violates the Charter: Article 5 already allows for the suspension of a state, but only upon the recommendation of the Security Council, that is, subject to a veto. Russia could veto itself with complete ease.
What some of us have been asking for for years is more modest and, precisely for that reason, possible. First,
the addition of new permanent members—India and Japan without question , perhaps Germany, along with African and Latin American representation. There is a precedent: in 1963, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 1991 (XVIII), which expanded the Council from eleven to fifteen members; the Soviet Union and France voted against it, and the United States abstained, but all five ultimately ratified it in 1965. It is the only amendment the Council has ever seen and demonstrates that the major powers accept what they cannot politically block.
Second, transforming the absolute veto into what we might call a weighted veto , which is almost a contradiction in terms but has a precise legal translation. This would involve adding a special rule to Article 27.3 for decisions adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter—those concerning international peace and security, the only ones that are legally binding—: they would be considered approved with the affirmative vote of nine members unless two or more permanent members cast a negative vote. A single veto would no longer suffice; a veto partner would be required. This does not eliminate the privilege of the five permanent members, but it transforms it into a power of coalition rather than a matter of whim, and would force Moscow to seek support from Beijing, or Washington from London or Paris, whenever it wanted to block a resolution on Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, the Sahel, or approve new sanctions against Russia or Iran.
It wouldn’t be as revolutionary as it seems. Article 27.3 has already been reinterpreted without changing a single comma : the International Court of Justice, in its 1971 advisory opinion on Namibia, confirmed that a permanent member’s voluntary abstention does not constitute a veto, contrary to the strict letter of the text. Furthermore, since 2022, General Assembly resolution 76/262 requires that all vetoes be debated and justified before the plenary. Practice has been gradually eroding the veto; it only remains for the Charter to do so.
A meager balance and a consolation
The outcome of this Assembly is meager: none of the wars that dominated it—Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, the Congo—left the building any closer to an end ; the Secretary-General bid farewell describing his own powerlessness; and the average level of the speakers would not have stood up to five minutes of comparison with those of 1955 or 1985. Guterres’ succession, with six candidates in the running and no decision this week, will be resolved where it always has been: among the five.
Dag Hammarskjöld famously declared in 1954 that the United Nations was not created to lead humanity to heaven, but to save it from hell . By that standard, and despite all its serious flaws and shortcomings, it must be said bluntly: if the UN did not exist, we would have to invent it. But we would invent it with fewer buildings and more Blue Helmets, with fewer secretariats and more UNICEF kitchens, and with a Security Council in which no single state could hijack world peace.