Reforming the United Nations

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the world's main legal body. But attendance at it is not compulsory. Only about a third of the UN's membership accepts its jurisdiction. The obvious reform is that all countries should accept the ICJ's jurisdiction and should make greater use of it in the settlement of international disputes.

UN Secretariat

The Secretary-General could be appointed for only one, seven-year term. The present arrangement is for the person to have five-year terms, with the understanding that only two terms will be served. There is a temptation to use the end of the first term as an election campaign to get re-appointed. One term in office would remove that need and perhaps make the office-holder more independent.

The UN Secretariat could be a truly international civil service. UN staff promise not to take instructions from their national governments but there is a temptation to maintain close links with their governments.

Similarly, national governments ought not to use the UN as a dumping ground to reward retired politicians or relatives of the ruling households who need a job - or whom the government would prefer to have out of the country. Recruitment should be on merit: it generally is at the lower levels but not necessarily at the senior level.

To sum up, all these micro reforms could be implemented this day if there was the political will. The list indicates that - contrary to some of the assumptions of the UN reform debate - the problems with the UN lie less in the UN Charter itself, and more with national governments not being willing to honour their current obligations.

The difficulty of amending the UN charter

It is very difficult to amend the UN Charter. According to Article 108, amendments have to be adopted by a vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes - including the Permanent 5 (US, Russia, UK, France and China). This latter provision provides a blocking veto - including a possible veto on any proposal to change the veto.

There are also political problems. According to Article 109, there was to be a review conference of the UN Charter no later than 1955 but this could not be held because of the Cold War. It has never taken place, and there is at present little governmental support for it to do so.

Since 1945, the only changes have been to the number of member-nations on UN bodies; these changes have arisen because of the increase in the UN's overall membership. For example, the UN Security Council's membership was increased in 1965 from 11 to 15.

Macro amendments

Macro amendments require a change to the UN Charter. Here are a few examples.

The Security Council