Stephen Sefton, October 12th 2025
The 80th anniversary of the United Nations this year has renewed the debate on its validity and future as an institution. The 80 years of betrayal of the Palestinian people that have culminated in open genocide in Gaza along with the permanent aggression against Cuba during 60 years of terrorism and blockade demonstrate categorically that the UN is a failed institution. Since its origins, it has been an instrument manipulated by the imperialist powers to cover their historical and contemporary crimes with a veneer of legitimacy.
The original sins
Under the complacent gaze of the Western powers, in 1948 the Zionists in Palestine killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and displaced more than 700,000 so as to steal their land. Similarly, two years later, under the protection of UN Security Council Resolutions 82 and 83, Western armed forces occupied Korea, killed more than two million civilians and destroyed by bombing all the urban centers of Democratic Korea. It is easy to forget the history of these origins of the UN, which also includes the historic injustice against the Chinese people.
In 1949, the new government of the People's Republic of China demanded its legitimate right to represent China at the United Nations. The Western powers blocked that just claim such that, in protest, in January 1950, the Soviet Union, in solidarity with China, withdrew from the Security Council. The Western powers took advantage of this situation to engineer their genocidal occupation of Korea, since the Soviet Union could not veto resolutions 82 and 83. The Soviet government rejoined the Security Council in August 1950, too late to prevent the Western aggression that used the alibi of the UN resolutions in a similar way as they abused UNSC Resolution 1973 in 2011 to destroy Libya.
This story is very important because it reveals the categorical, permanent cynicism of the criminal ruling classes of the collective West since 1945. The paradox of the 1950s is that while the US ruling elites and their European vassals, all founders of the United Nations, betrayed the fundamental principles of the UN, the ruling Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, excluded from the UN, defended them. In 1954, the government of China enunciated the Five Principles for Peaceful Coexistence to share with India and other countries of the majority world as the basis of their relations and for conflict resolution.
The fundamental principles of the UN Charter are the self-determination of peoples, non-aggression, non-interference and cooperation for development. Practically equivalent, the Five Principles are: mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression; mutual non-interference in internal affairs; equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; and peaceful coexistence. So by the 1950s, the inability of the UN to defend its own fundamental principles had already been established, while the People's Republic of China, India and other countries of the majority world had comprehensively formulated, parallel to the UN, their norms for international relations based on respect and equality.
El debate sobre la gobernanza internacional
It was in this context that the process of incomplete and partial decolonization took place in the decades after 1945, which made possible the nominal independence of the former Western colonies of the majority world. Now 70 years later, the same situation prevails. The UN is widely discredited for being an institution constantly manipulated to legitimize a culture of deeply unjust international relations. On the other hand, the People's Republic of China, Russia, India and other powers of the majority world are moving forward with the development of democratic relations based on respect and recognition of each other's interests.
It is because of all this history that our Comandante Daniel remarked on the 37th anniversary of the historic International Court of Justice verdict in favor of Nicaragua, “...we are at the United Nations because it is a point of contact at least to exchange, to join forces, to confront imperialist aggression as far as possible. Because there is no democratic system there at the United Nations... The United Nations is nothing more than a bit of paper that is there, one that is not respected, that is not complied with." In 2011, consistent with this position of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, our Chancellor of Dignity, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann proposed a detailed reinvention of the UN.
Padre Miguel's vision was egalitarian not only in the sense of parity between nations in decision-making, but also in the reorganization of the world economic system to correct the inequality imposed by centuries of imperialist plunder. During his presidency of the UN General Assembly between 2008 and 2009, Father Miguel established a Commission of Experts to recommend reforms to the international financial system. His proposal for the reinvention of the UN did not just contemplate a mere expansion of the formal democracy of international relations but rather the application of essential ethical norms to achieve Peace and ensure that humanity could successfully address, in all its aspects, the global environmental crisis generated by capitalism.
A dysfunctional organization
The issue of the climate crisis has been central to criticism of the UN by the world's nations most vulnerable to the consequences of the environmental crisis, for example, the countries of Africa, Oceania, Central America and the Caribbean. The governments of the collective West have not fulfilled their commitments to guarantee resources in order to help these vulnerable countries implement necessary measures to adapt to global environmental challenges. This lack of respect for agreements reached and for the interests of other countries sabotages the good operation of all the different organizations related to the UN, including the main instances such as the International Court of Justice, the World Trade Organization or the World Health Organization.
The abuse and manipulation of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the International Labour Organization, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council or the UN High Commission for Refugees is notorious. Many of the UN bodies dishonestly accept for their purposes deficient data and false information from the international so-called “civil society" irremediably dependent directly or indirectly on funding from the Western ruling elites. This phenomenon is especially noticeable in the human rights industry, systematically abused so as to demonize governments resisting the will of the collective West.
There are several issues secondary to fundamental reform of the institutional components of the UN. For example, the completely unjustifiable location of the UN in the country that is the worst violator of the principles of non-aggression and non-intervention. Perhaps less urgently, the same consideration applies to the location of other key UN institutions in Geneva, since Switzerland long ago ceased to be a truly neutral country. Another secondary consideration is the recruitment culture of UN human resources, highly biased towards people from countries of the collective West, especially in the most important positions. But perhaps the most relevant criticisms are directed at the UN Security Council.
At the 80th General Assembly this year, Kenyan President William Ruto expressed the consensus of the majority world when he declared “The Council is dysfunctional, undemocratic, non-inclusive, irresponsible, autocratic and opaque." By the way, this is the position elaborated by the African Union in the Ezulwini Consensus which insists on a more representative and democratic Security Council. As Gambian President Adama Barrow also insisted, "We must also strive for a more representative, just and inclusive United Nations to shape the world we want so much.
On behalf of Russia, President Vladimir Putin has commented, "...the countries with a Global Majority now constitute an overwhelming majority in the UN, so its structure and governing bodies should adjust to this fact, which will also be much more in line with the basic principles of democracy." Similarly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has noted that, “The return of the UN to the fundamental principles stipulated in the Charter should be a point of reference... Reforming the UN is a part of the integral mission of transforming the entire system of global governance."
The Global Governance Initiative
This year, President Xi Jinping of the People's Republic of China launched the Global Governance Initiative to rectify the three main shortcomings of the UN's work. First, the initiative supports the demands of the majority world for greater representation in the UN bodies, especially the Security Council. Secondly, it highlights the importance of reforms in the UN’s operation to restore the much damaged authority of its Charter, of the Security Council, and to end the illegal use of unilateral coercive measures. The third point demands greater effectiveness of the policies agreed by the UN in relation, for example, to climate change or the digital divide, in addition to new challenges such as the regulation of cyberspace and Artificial Intelligence and the rules of the use of outer space.
China's Global Governance Initiative insists on the centrality of equal sovereignty, international law, genuine multilateralism, the aspirations and needs of the human person of the world’s peoples, and real results from the work of global governance in solving problems and conflicts. As President Xi Jinping explained on the occasion of the Military Parade for the 80th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People against Japanese Aggression. "Today, humanity once again has to choose between peace and war, dialogue and confrontation, win-win cooperation and a zero-sum game... We will remain committed to the paths of peaceful development and join hands with all the peoples of the world to build a community with a shared future for humanity.”
It is clear that the ruling elites of the collective West are not going to easily give up the privileged status that has allowed them to sabotage the original purposes of the UN since 1945. In any case, the majority world in general promotes its regional cooperation processes towards a true democratization of international relations with or without an adequate reform of the UN. This process is progressing more firmly in the huge Eurasian region with the integration of the countries of ASEAN, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Gulf Cooperation Council of Arab States.
At the end of the prologue to the “Reinvention of the United Nations”, Father Miguel d’Escoto addressed the challenge facing the peoples of the world and reaffirmed his faith that we can overcome it, “From cosmic stardust we were made to spread light and shine in the darkness. Our mission is to make the darkness of hatred, greed, warmongering and all kinds of violence against Mother Earth and humanity disappear forever. We must be beacons of love, justice and peace announcing the definitive dawning of the golden daybreak of universal solidarity. A reinvented United Nations is the way to achieve this.”