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Home > Projects > Reinventing Multilateralism: The United Nations
Reinventing Multilateralism: The United Nations
Reinventing Multilateralism: The United Nations

Reinventing Multilateralism: The United Nations

Image: Bartus Daniel / shutterstock.com

The United Nations is operating under conditions for which it was not designed. The current crisis is not primarily managerial. It reflects deeper structural tensions.

Four interrelated deficits define the problem.

The first is the erosion of the system’s capacity to enforce the UN Charter’s prohibition against interstate aggression. Article 2(4) remains the normative foundation of the international order, yet the mechanisms intended to uphold it have proven unable to constrain major powers when they act in violation of it.

The second is a widening functional mismatch between the system’s architecture and the nature of contemporary risks. Climate change, pandemics, and advanced technologies are transnational, intergenerational, and intersystemic. They do not fit a state-centric, issue-siloed institutional design.

The third is political blockage within the system’s core decision-making structures. The Security Council’s collective security model depends on great-power consensus that does not presently exist. At the same time, authority across the system is distributed in ways that leave much of the world’s population without meaningful influence over decisions that affect them directly.

The fourth is structural financial dependence. The UN’s financing model leaves it vulnerable to political pressure from its largest contributors, constraining its autonomy across all domains.

These deficits are interconnected. Taken together, they raise a central question: how can a multilateral system built on consent among major powers function when that consent no longer holds? The question is no longer how to make the system work better within its existing design but whether elements of that design must now be reconsidered.

In partnership with the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, the Toda Peace Institute has published a series of eight policy briefs, with an introduction by Jordan Ryan and a foreword by TPI Director Stein Tønnesson and DHF Executive Director Björn Holmberg.

Policy Brief and Reports

Reinventing the Capacity to Act: Introduction to Reinventing the United Nations

October 19, 2026

Reinventing the Capacity to Act: Introduction to Reinventing the United Nations

Jordan Ryan

The United Nations is expected to address problems that cross borders, but it must do so in a world very different from that of 1945. Power, knowledge and resources are distributed differently, while Security Council…

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Legitimacy by Design and Security Council Reform

October 19, 2026

Legitimacy by Design and Security Council Reform

Linda Darkwa

Discussion about reforming the United Nations Security Council has for a long time focused on who is at the table, who has the veto, and how the Council might be enlarged. This paper begins from…

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Restoring Constraint on Aggression

October 19, 2026

Restoring Constraint on Aggression

Mark Simonoff

The prohibition of the use of force is the foundation of the modern international order. Out of the ashes of World War II, the founders of the United Nations resolved to prevent the scourge of…

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Collective Security Beyond the Security Council

October 19, 2026

Collective Security Beyond the Security Council

Eugene Chen

If the Security Council cannot consistently perform its core function, what complementary architecture can reinforce rather than replace it? This paper examines how efforts of the Secretary-General, General Assembly mechanisms, regional bodies, and coalitions of…

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Authority Without Consensus: Reviving the Convening Authority of the United Nations

October 19, 2026

Authority Without Consensus: Reviving the Convening Authority of the United Nations

Georgios Kostakos

Major powers and frustrated coalitions are creating parallel governance frameworks outside the established multilateral system founded on the United Nations (UN) Charter. This paper examines how the UN can engage predictably and productively with such…

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Governing What Sovereignty Cannot: The Case of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance

October 19, 2026

Governing What Sovereignty Cannot: The Case of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance

Renata Dwan

UN reinvention depends on delivering collective action where sovereignty cannot. This paper explores how the UN became a principal body for navigating global issues that go beyond the power, authority, and capabilities of any one…

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Prevention as a Core UN System Function: From Commitments to Capability

October 19, 2026

Prevention as a Core UN System Function: From Commitments to Capability

Sigrid Gruener, Henrik Hammargren

Prevention is central to the United Nations’ Charter purpose, reform agendas and normative commitments, yet it remains fragmented as an operational practice. This paper argues that the UN lacks a coherent system function that connects…

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Financing Without Strings Attached: A Sequenced Pathway to Institutional Autonomy

October 19, 2026

Financing Without Strings Attached: A Sequenced Pathway to Institutional Autonomy

Frederik Matthys, Peter Linnér

The United Nations' financial crisis concerns control and accountability as well as volume. Where concentrated earmarking makes programme direction dependent on donors’ concurrence, it functions as a de facto veto over implementation. Donors also earmark…

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The UN’s Universal Centre: The General Assembly, the Secretary-General and the International Civil Service

October 19, 2026

The UN’s Universal Centre: The General Assembly, the Secretary-General and the International Civil Service

Henrik Hammargren, Jemina Holmberg

Debates on reforming the United Nations tend to focus on the Security Council, great-power rivalry, and the growing role of regional organisations, informal coalitions, and non-state actors. Less attention is paid to institutions already at…

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Author

Jordan Ryan

Jordan Ryan
Linda Darkwa

Linda Darkwa
Mark Simonoff

Mark Simonoff
Eugene Chen

Eugene Chen
Georgios Kostakos

Georgios Kostakos
Renata Dwan

Renata Dwan
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