The United Nations (UN) celebrates its 81st birthday on Saturday, though with the Security Council (UNSC) deadlocked on who will lead the organisation as secretary-general in the New Year, celebrations are somewhat muted. The UN stands today at a precarious crossroads, frequently condemned as a relic of a bygone era in urgent need of reform, yet remaining undeniably central to the global agenda, while failing at its vital task, the maintenance of international peace and security.Over its history, the UN system has constructed the normative architecture of international society and saved millions of lives. On the humanitarian front, specialised agencies have driven historic triumphs: Joint campaigns by UNICEF and the World Health Organisation nearly halved child mortality from 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million by 2011, brought polio to the brink of eradication, and coordinated global responses to public health crises like Ebola and Covid. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (the organisation I served from 1978 to 1989) assists over 35 million displaced people annually, while the World Food Programme regularly delivers vital relief to millions of people struck by catastrophic disasters.AdvertisementAlso Read | Can the next UN secretary-general revive global peace?This humanitarian impact is matched by an ambitious global development and environmental agenda. The Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015) halved extreme poverty worldwide, expanded access to primary education for millions, and significantly reduced maternal mortality, laying the groundwork for the 2015–2030 Sustainable Development Goals, even as these multilateral commitments now face severe challenges because of drastic funding cuts under the second Trump administration. UN-brokered instruments ranging from the Montreal Protocol, which successfully phased out 99 per cent of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, to the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, have redefined global environmental responsibility. From advancing women’s rights at the landmark Beijing Conference to establishing the first unified international framework for migration (the 2018 Global Compact for Migration), the UN has consistently expanded the boundaries of global social policy, though a backlash against these achievements has been mounting.That brings us to peace and security: Through its peace-making and peace-keeping machinery, which I served from 1989 to 1996 and helped oversee from secretary-general Kofi Annan’s office for another decade, the UN has brokered roughly 170 peace settlements, helping to defuse existential flashpoints from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Iran-Iraq War, containing complex civil conflicts, and stabilising nations transitioning to freedom like Namibia, East Timor, and Mozambique. However, in recent years, the UN has seemed increasingly ineffectual, as wars have raged, unchecked by UN intervention, in Ukraine, Iran, Gaza, Libya and Yemen. Critics routinely point to the UNSC’s chronic paralysis and the apparent inability of recent secretaries-general to stand up for the principles of the UN Charter.It is undeniable that the UNSC anachronistically reflects the geopolitical realities of 1945 and not those of 2025. The world has undergone a radical transformation over those eight decades. The collapse of European colonial empires spawned dozens of vibrant, independent nations, while new dynamic powers have emerged as drivers of regional growth and stability. Yet the composition of the Council’s permanent membership looks like a war photo from 1945. Billions of people remain entirely without permanent representation, while major nations and economic leaders are excluded from the primary decision-making organ of global security. The stark disconnect between actual relevance and formal authority creates a severe representational deficit, eroding confidence in the international rule of law and leading more and more states to view Council resolutions with cynicism.AdvertisementThis crisis of legitimacy is further compounded by the veto power, which has transformed the UNSC into a stage for strategic obstruction. When individual permanent members use the mere threat of a veto to shield themselves or their allies from accountability during humanitarian catastrophes, wars or blatant violations of sovereign borders, the fundamental purpose of the Charter is subverted. When gridlock recurs in the Council, countries increasingly turn to smaller, self-selected coalitions, ad hoc regional alliances, or exclusive economic forums like the G20.But the G20 cannot dispatch peacekeepers to crisis spots, and it does not enjoy the moral authority that comes from the UN’s universal membership. Regional blocs and “mini-lateral” groupings, while useful for specific economic or defensive interests, lack the global inclusiveness and universal authority that only the United Nations possesses. A world without a functioning, effective UNSC would be a Thucydidean world where “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. In other words, where might is right, and smaller and developing nations possess virtually no institutional recourse or voice. The universal membership of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and the binding legal authority of UNSC decisions under international law therefore remain irreplaceable public goods.you may likeEveryone agrees the UN needs reform, but they don’t agree on what that means. When the developed West speaks of reform, they mean budget cuts, merger of UN departments and organisations, and streamlining of mandates, staff numbers and costs; but when developing countries speak of reform, they call for greater inclusion, better representation and a definitive voice in determining the UN’s priorities. Expanding permanent seats to include underrepresented regions and emerging powers, establishing clear norms to limit veto usage, and deepening formal accountability between the UNSC and the UNGA are steps that would restore the UN’s credibility in much of the world. But reform must stop short of the point where the most powerful and influential member states might walk away, because that would end the UN.The UN matters because global governance of international peace and security requires an anchor grounded in both universalism and broad legitimacy. At its best, the UN embodied the core idea of the post-war international order: Multilateralism could function as a vital shock absorber, providing a permanent, continuous space where adversaries could meet, de-escalate tensions, and negotiate behind closed doors even during moments of extreme global confrontation. It is that UN we need to recreate, and 81 years is long enough to show us why it’s worth doing.The writer-MP served the UN from 1978-2007. He was India’s candidate for UN secretary-general in 2006, and came second out of seven candidates