‘The UN has done well but not well enough. Comment. (1991)
The verdict reflects the mood of 1991: the Cold War had ended, the Council had authorised the reversal of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and the UN seemed about to work as designed. Whether it has done “well enough” depends on the yardstick. Against the Charter’s promise to end “the scourge of war” it falls short; against the League of Nations, and against a body with no army or revenue of its own, it has done remarkably. The formula is broadly fair but averages an uneven record.
Where it has done well
- No great-power war since 1945. Deterrence did most of the work, but the UN supplied channels, as in U Thant‘s Cuban missile crisis mediation (1962).
- Decolonisation. Resolution 1514 (1960) helped raise membership from 51 to 193.
- Norms and law. The Universal Declaration (1948), nine core human rights treaties, UNCLOS, the Paris Agreement and the BBNJ Agreement (in force January 2026).
- Peacekeeping successes in Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador and Timor-Leste; India has sent nearly 300,000 personnel, 184 of whom have died in service.
- Development and relief. Smallpox eradication, the MDGs and SDGs, and aid to a forcibly displaced population of 117.8 million (end-2025).
Where it has not done well enough
- Collective security. No Article 43 forces were created and enforcement was delegated to coalitions. The veto paralysed action on Hungary (1956), Iraq (2003), Syria, Ukraine and Gaza.
- Protection failures. Rwanda (1994) and Srebrenica (1995) took place with UN forces present; the Brahimi Report (2000) blamed mandates unmatched by means.
- Terrorism. No agreed definition; India’s draft Comprehensive Convention (1996) remains unadopted.
- Development targets. The SDG Report 2026 found only 36% of 139 measurable targets on track or advancing moderately.
- Representation. The Council, enlarged only once (1965), excludes Africa, Latin America and India from permanent membership.
Why “not enough”: structural causes
- Design. The Charter was written for inter-state aggression, but most conflicts have been civil wars, against which Article 2(7) is an obstacle.
- Power. Realists such as Hans J. Morgenthau argued that collective security asks states to put obligation above interest, which they will not do.
- Resources. The 2026 regular budget is only US$3.45 billion, 7.3% lower, and US arrears have left the organisation near insolvency.
- Self-entrenchment. Article 108 lets any permanent member block Charter amendment, so its defects cannot be corrected against the powerful.
Is the formula itself right?
It is accurate but too comfortable: it implies a single passing grade. The record is bimodal. Enforcement has largely failed; decolonisation, standard-setting, law-making and humanitarian delivery have succeeded. Robert O. Keohane‘s institutionalism explains the second list: regimes survive because cooperation through them is cheaper than without them. Ramesh Thakur (The United Nations, Peace and Security, 2006) shows it adapting where its design failed, from collective security towards human security and the responsibility to protect. Kofi Annan‘s In Larger Freedom (2005) argued that security, development and human rights depend on each other, so failure in one pillar limits success in the others. The shortfall also belongs to member states: the UN can do only what its members allow and finance.
Conclusion
The UN has done well where great-power interests were absent or aligned and poorly where they were engaged and divided. Its deficiencies lie mainly in structure and politics rather than conception, so the remedy is reform in representation, finance and the veto. That is India’s case for reformed multilateralism, and the UN80 process has so far produced retrenchment rather than reform.