Will the UN share the fate of the League of Nations?
By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 01/10/2025
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In 1946, the League of Nations, a multilateral organization created in 1920 to promote international cooperation, resolve conflicts, and strengthen peace, was dissolved. The reasons for its collapse included, among others, its inability to prevent the outbreak of World War II, its weakness in enforcing the resolutions adopted by its members, the lack of participation by the United States, and the absence of a multilateral culture among the world's most developed countries. Thus, national interests prevailed over those of the global conglomerate, and nationalism flourished, accompanied by the authoritarian strain that emerges whenever economic or political crises, or both, materialize.
The dissolution of the League of Nations was preceded by the creation of the United Nations in 1945. It was hoped to create a multilateral culture that would build an edifice of international rules binding on its members. The organization was empowered to ensure compliance with the rules. The new body was supposed to unite the nations of the world in the pursuit of development and the establishment of peace.
And, from 1945 until 1995, the United Nations was the instrument through which Western democracies managed to impose order on economic relations; create and develop health services in many developing countries; initiate the process of international trade liberalization; and promote education and culture. They also led decolonization processes that, for the first time in human history, were carried out in an orderly and nonviolent manner.
But within the international system, destructive maladies of multilateralism were emerging, fostering a destructive paralysis within the organization. The first destructive element was the unconditional acceptance of the creation of a group of independent nations that do not meet the minimum conditions for statehood. Indeed, a country ceases to be a geographical expression and becomes a state when, in addition to population and territory, it possesses an institutional framework that allows its population to exercise sovereignty (elect its leaders), aggregate interests, and resolve disputes. Economic resources are also essential to guarantee the survival of the population.
By 1945, 70 nations had signed the UN Charter. By the twenty-eighth session of the General Assembly, currently being held in New York, the United Nations had reached 193 members. Approximately 45% of these countries were not viable states because they lacked institutions or sources of support. However, they were created thanks to the rivalry that existed between Western leaders (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This rivalry led the Security Council to support statehood for dozens of non-viable countries. These nations are distinguished by their political instability and economic weakness, so their position in international conflicts depends on the advantage they can gain over relatively more developed countries (the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan) or over Russia and, to a lesser extent, China. Thus, decision-making in the UN is influenced by vote-mongering, a factor that distances it from making appropriate decisions.
From a structural perspective, the United Nations operates with a centralized model for decision-making and policy implementation. This reduces its efficiency in areas of development promotion, since policy makers are located millions of miles away from the Secretary-General. Only agencies with specific tasks whose execution requires technical expertise, such as the World Telecommunication Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the World Meteorological Organization, have managed to establish themselves as universal authorities in their fields with commendable levels of efficiency. This is thanks to the nature of their work that distances them from operational centralism and political conflicts.
From the perspective of conflict prevention, the United Nations today exhibits a total paralysis. Thus, disagreements between Russia, China, and the West end up leading to crises, and crises to violent conflicts that the UN is unable to defuse or channel. Haiti is a good example of this.
And finally, the last 35 years have seen an unprecedented surge in the presence and growth of a non-state actor with significant international power: transnational organized crime, whose revenues have grown from ten billion dollars in 2000 to one trillion dollars in 2024. This economic flow allows transnational organized crime to penetrate the institutional apparatus of many nations around the world, subverting them and making them work for its benefit. Many United Nations member countries sell their votes to these organizations in exchange for favors and perks for their leaders. And since there is no activity with greater national roots than criminal law and law enforcement activities, criminal elements entrench themselves in the nations that protect them.
All these factors explain the institutional deterioration of the United Nations. But its reform and reorientation do not seem to be on the agenda of any world power, since the complex problems of the 21st century have led the world's leading nations to take refuge in nationalism, just as they did when the League of Nations collapsed.
«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».