In the recorded history of international relations, institutions rarely fail outright. Instead, they become irrelevant. Contrary to popular belief, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is not collapsing due to the weight of idealism or bureaucratic inertia. Instead, it is institutionally becoming obsolete in the face of increasing great-power competition. With veto-wielding powers putting national interests above collective action, the UNSC is in danger of following the same path as the League of Nations into irrelevance, not by dissolution but by empty continuation.
The League, which was formed after World War I, is commonly regarded as an idealistic experiment. But its downfall was more structural than philosophical. Its mandates were enforced based on unanimous agreement between the rival great powers, a weak structure that collapsed when those powers pursued their own interests. The League, which claimed to uphold collective security, disintegrated because it shielded France and the United Kingdom (UK) from accountability, enabling them to continue exploitative rule and widespread bloodshed in the Global South without repercussions. The lack of an effective yardstick of success meant that the paralysis of the League was not a bug but a defining characteristic of a system that was poorly equipped to deal with realpolitik.
In the same manner, the veto system of the UNSC, which was meant to be a great-power buy-in mechanism, has been transformed into a power-preservation tool rather than a peacekeeping apparatus. The UNSC was born out of the rubble of World War II and was intended to ensure that the world did not face another disaster due to the lack of coordinated efforts. However, in reality, it has turned into a battlefield where permanent members or the P5 – the United States (US), Russia, China, France, and the UK) – exercise their privileges to protect allies, prevent enemies, and secure spheres of influence.
The veto is not used primarily to stop decisions about global peace and security. Instead, it is used by the P5 to avoid taking responsibility for actions that might: constrain their own strategic interests, expose their allies, require military or political intervention, or criticize their own behaviour. Votes on emergency issues are often vetoed or diluted, not due to any actual disagreements over the facts, but owing to geopolitical calculus. The UNSC is increasingly being utilised to delay solutions rather than resolve them, developing a culture of selective legality where international law is applied selectively based on alliances.
This silence perpetuates hierarchies of victimhood. Confrontations that challenge Western interests are condemned and penalised instantly, but others remain in the shadow. The inability of the Council to implement its own resolutions undermines its authority, particularly when considering the long-standing impasse in the Palestine-Israel conflict. The realm once intended for selective has become a battlefield of narrative control, in which the great powers are less concerned with humanitarian needs than with strategic benefits.
These systemic patterns are highlighted by recent crises, not as transient dysfunctions but as precursors of underlying malaise. Humanitarian norms have been relegated to veto politics in Gaza, and the US has used its authority to veto several resolutions demanding immediate ceasefires in 2024 and 2025. Despite the intensification of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, causing catastrophic civilian deaths and a humanitarian disaster, the work of the Security Council resulted in Resolution 2803 on 17 November 2025, which sanctioned an international stabilisation force but has been criticised for legitimising the indefinite occupation of Palestine and marginalising Palestinian self-determination. This selective use of international law underscores the role of veto privileges in favour of allies, to the detriment of fair and consistent application.
In Ukraine, the enforcement is not universal because of Russia’s veto, which makes the Council useless in stopping the current invasion. Although Resolution 2774, passed on 24 February 2025 by 10 votes to 5 abstentions, lamented the loss of life on the third anniversary of the conflict, it did not go further to impose binding measures, which was a neutral position in the face of ongoing Russian aggression. Western-led coalitions have offered military assistance and sanctions beyond the UN system, but this informal practice highlights the marginalisation of the UNSC: peace enforcement is increasingly being bypassed by the very body that is supposed to uphold it, as continued Council meetings produce little more than desperate appeals amid escalating airstrikes.
In the case of Sudan, silence has become a trend and not an oversight, and crises such as the civil war in Sudan have received little substantive action. With the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces entering its third year, displacing more than 10 million people and causing famine, the Council has issued only weak statements, blocked by the threat of veto by Russia and China due to their economic interests. Other areas, such as the increasing violence and ethnic conflict in South Sudan – where the UNSC has been warned of increasing risks but its response remains disjointed and inadequate – are no exception, and the biases that deprioritise non-Western crises are reinforced.
This selective engagement has created a gap of credibility, especially in the Global South. Countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are increasingly convinced that the UNSC is an outdated artefact of the 1940s power relations, both unrepresentative and unresponsive. Paralysis contributes to norm contestation, as states dispute Western-dominated interpretations of international law, manifested in debates over sovereignty versus intervention.
The emergence of other forums such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and ad hoc alliances, is indicative of this shift. BRICS, which has now expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), provides an avenue for economic and security collaboration without veto politics. Regional solutions are becoming more popular, as seen in African Union peace operations in Somalia or the mediation efforts of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Yemen. This loss of credibility is not merely rhetorical but strategic. Once trust is lost, the UNSC will lose its ability to mobilise the international community, and the world will move closer to multipolar disintegration.
The League era was fraught, and its outcome was World War II, but now the stakes are even higher. The UNSC, unlike the League – which functioned in a comparatively thin legal environment – sits at the centre of a dense network of international institutions, including the International Criminal Court (ICC) and trade regimes under the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Its irrelevance would not merely isolate the Council but would delegitimise the entire rules-based order.
In a globalised world, hollow survival is more dangerous than outright collapse. A dysfunctional UNSC is an invitation to rogue behaviour: states would violate norms knowing they would not be enforced, while conflicts and arms races proliferate. Cyber threats, climate-driven migration, and pandemics require coordinated action, but competition, such as the US-China tensions over Taiwan or the Russian posturing in Eastern Europe, guarantees stalemate. The greater threat lies in normalisation: once the great powers stop even pretending to collaborate, the system begins to rot from within.
Utopian reform proposals of UNSC reform, whether through expanding permanent membership or eliminating the veto, are well-intended but unrealistic in the short term, as they require the consent of the very powers that benefit from the status quo. Instead, more practical pathways involve issue-based coalitions, where like-minded states cooperate outside of the UN system.
Norm fragmentation is unavoidable. It must be managed by reinforcing specialised institutions such as the World Health Organisation during health crises or empowering local institutions in addressing regional conflicts. Burden-sharing can be improved through security regionalisation, such as strengthening organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) or ASEAN.
Finally, we must consider whether we are in a post-UNSC security environment. As great powers retreat into bilateral agreements and mini-lateral coalitions, the Council risk being reduced to mere window dressing. This is not defeatism but realism in an era of hegemonic struggle.
The League did not end with a bang but faded when great powers ceased even the pretense of cooperation in favour of appeasement and aggression. The UNSC now faces a similar gradual decline. It demands relevance at a time when the new world order is rapidly evolving. History teaches that irrelevance is a source of instability. To avoid a multipolar free-for-all, global security must be re-invented, not be restoring a failing institution, but by developing credible alternatives that reflect contemporary power realities. The question is no longer whether the UNSC can adapt, but whether the international community can function without it.
