Every year, the American Branch of the International Law Association hosts International Law Weekend in New York City, the largest fall gathering of international law practitioners, government officials, academics, and students in the United States. Held on Oct. 23 at the House of the New York City Bar Association and on Oct. 24-25 at Fordham University School of Law, the theme of International Law Weekend this year is “Crisis as Catalyst in International Law.”
In connection with International Law Weekend, Just Security will be publishing a series of expert essays related to the theme, including analyses from both established voices and emerging scholars who will be presenting at the conference. In my role as president of the American Branch of the International Law Association, I write both to introduce the series and to contribute an essay related to the conference theme.
As readers of Just Security know too well, we live in perilous times. A conference dedicated to discussion of the many crises facing international law and international institutions, and how such critical moments function as a catalyst for change, could not be more timely or important. International Law Weekend 2025 features more than 35 panels on a wide range of topics, but I am especially looking forward to the Opening Session on Oct. 23, at 5:30 p.m. in the Great Hall of the House of the New York City Bar Association, where I’ll engage in a fireside chat with Elinor Hammarskjöld, the new Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel of the United Nations.
Given the Trump administration’s massive cuts to U.N. funding this year and Congress’ consideration of withdrawing from the institution, this will be an important conversation about the continuing relevance of the U.N. and the outlook for its future. Moreover, International Law Weekend 2025 will be held while the U.N. itself debates comprehensive institutional reform. During our conversation, I’ll ask Under-Secretary-General Hammarskjöld to provide an update on where these reform efforts stand and their prospects for success.
To set the stage for that conversation and to kick off our essay series, I’ve written from my perspective as a former Attorney Adviser for U.N. Affairs of the U.S. Department of State during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. I consider the continuing relevance of the U.N., the urgent need for major reform, and the dire consequences to the United States and the world that would result from further U.S. defunding or withdrawal from the organization.
The United Nations at 80: Is it Still Relevant?
In the aftermath of World War II, the bloodiest war in human history, the United States played a lead role in establishing the United Nations. In the 80 years since the U.N. Charter was negotiated in San Francisco, the organization has helped prevent a third World War and addressed global challenges such as armed conflict, commission of atrocities, famine, drought, natural disasters, refugee flows, rising sea levels, and global health crises.
Not to be overlooked are the roles that the U.N. General Assembly, the U.N. International Law Commission, and other U.N. bodies have played in drafting some of the most important international instruments in modern times, from the formulation of the Nuremberg Principles to the drafting of a Statute for the International Criminal Court, from the negotiation of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to the creation of the Outer Space Treaty, and countless others.
U.S. Funding Cuts and the U.N.’s Financial Crisis
Given all that it does across the globe, the U.N. operates on a relatively small budget: $3.7 billion for regular expenses and $5.4 billion for peacekeeping. Although the United States provides significant funding to the U.N. ($820 million per year for its regular budget and $1.3 billion for its peacekeeping budget), the amount is a small fraction of what the country spends on defense ($997 billion annually), its space program ($80 billion annually), or its border wall with Mexico ($46 billion in 2025). At the same time, the United States derives substantial financial benefit as the host of the U.N. headquarters. According to the New York mayor’s office, hosting the U.N. headquarters generates over $3.69 billion annually for New York City and supports 24,040 jobs for New Yorkers.
Under the scale of assessments approved by the United States and the other members of the U.N., the United States is required to pay 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget and 26 percent of its peacekeeping budget. Although that may seem high, the percentage reflects the United States’ share of global gross national income (and the regular budget percentage was reduced from 25 percent to 22 percent in 2001). China recently increased its share of the U.N. budget to 20 percent, second only to the United States. Some experts whom I’ve spoken with worry that having a few countries continue to pay the lion’s share of the U.N. budget gives them too much influence and creates too much risk for the future of the U.N.
That risk became reality in 2025. In the past eight months, the United States has withdrawn from several U.N. bodies, radically cut funding to the larger organization, and is considering defunding it altogether. The U.N. has responded to the resulting budget crisis by drastically curbing spending and laying off 20 percent of its staff.
Although the U.N. is surviving, these funding cuts are impairing essential U.N. services and initiatives that address global challenges, including health crises, natural disasters, and refugee flows. They are crippling vital peacekeeping forces in places such as Kashmir, the Golan Heights, Lebanon, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where troops have quelled fighting and stifled the commission of atrocities. And it is not just the U.N. and its programs that suffer. The massive U.S. funding cuts are diminishing U.S. influence within the U.N. system, ceding global leadership to China, and alienating historic friends and allies. The U.N. might even seek to relocate its headquarters to a more supportive country, irrevocably blemishing American prestige and costing the United States billions in lost revenue.
Need for Reform
A former U.N. official recently remarked that “the United Nations is at a moment of reckoning.” Facing its greatest financial crisis, as well as deepening Security Council paralysis, the U.N. appears to be failing with respect to current conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and Gaza.
But out of this crisis of confidence, the U.N. has launched a sweeping reform initiative called “UN80,” aimed at bringing transformative change throughout the U.N. system. Reforms under consideration include the consolidation of peace, development, humanitarian, and human rights functions, and the creation of a centralized Executive Secretariat to unify administrative and policy support.
At the same time, the U.N. is starting to make progress on the enduring problem of the “Perm Five” veto, the power held by the five members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to unilaterally block resolutions. This ability of members to wield veto power has almost completely prevented the Security Council from taking meaningful action for the past two decades. In contrast, when I served as Attorney-Adviser for U.N. Affairs, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Security Council experienced a rare period of productivity. It responded to the crises in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia by imposing sanctions; establishing peacekeeping forces; and creating “No Fly” zones, safe areas, investigative commissions, compensation commissions, and international criminal tribunals. With the change in the geopolitical situation in recent years, Security Council activity has ground to a halt, impeding the U.N. from fulfilling its role in maintaining international peace and security.
For decades, members of the U.N. have debated reforming the veto through amendment of the U.N. Charter. But the problem with that approach is that the “Perm Five” can block reform of the veto by using their veto. Recently, the U.N. has turned to some creative non-amendment reforms, which are described in an excellent new article by Oona Hathaway, the President-Elect of the American Society of International Law.
One of these is called “the veto initiative.” Under a resolution adopted by the General Assembly in April 2022, whenever a Perm Five member casts a veto, the General Assembly must meet within 10 days and “hold a debate on the situation as to which the veto was cast.” This would require the veto-casting member to justify its use of the veto and provide the General Assembly the opportunity to address the matter. This process has already been used a dozen times and appears to be changing the veto dynamic.
Another effort has been the resuscitation and creative use of the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution, which was designed to enable the General Assembly to act when the Security Council is paralyzed by the veto. After 40 years of non-use, the General Assembly decided to employ the Uniting for Peace mechanism to respond to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. As I describe in a recent article, pursuant to this mechanism, the General Assembly has adopted resolutions declaring that Russia has committed an unlawful act of aggression, rejecting the Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory, expelling Russia from the Human Rights Council, and establishing a registry to document Ukraine’s human and economic losses so that Russian assets can one day be used to pay compensation for its war damages.
Another important non-amendment reform that has been proposed relates to the interpretation and enforcement of Article 27(3) of the U.N. Charter, which provides: “a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting” in Chapter VI resolutions. Since this rule has never been enforced, this Article has been referred to as “a dead letter,” but the General Assembly could request the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs or the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion clarifying that the Perm Five cannot use their veto to block Chapter VI action relating to their violations of international law. While that would not apply to use of force which requires Chapter VII authorization, there is quite a lot the Security Council can accomplish under Chapter VI if not blocked by the veto, such as recommending or endorsing sanctions, creating peacekeeping and monitoring missions, and establishing investigatory mechanisms.
Conclusion
On the 80th anniversary of its founding, the U.N. is undertaking much-needed reform. It’s doing so as it faces criticism from within and without. It is also weathering its worst financial crisis. Despite these pressures, it continues to be one of the world’s most important and impactful institutions.
The American people get that even if their current leaders do not. Despite the Trump administration’s assault on the U.N., opinion polls indicate that over 60 percent of Americans still support the U.N. This makes it significantly more popular among Americans than the U.S. president (44 percent), Congress (26 percent), or the Supreme Court (39 percent).
The history of the U.N. is still being written, and 2025 may be one of its most important chapters.
