Q.“The UN is an imperfect body but without it the world would be worse off.” Explain the statement.

UN Reform Challenges — A First Look

Imagine a club founded in 1945, with rules written right after a world war. The world has changed completely since then — new countries, new problems, new powers — but the club's rules are almost the same. That is the United Nations today. Reform means changing those rules so the UN can actually handle 21st-century problems. The challenges are the reasons why that change is so hard.

The core problem: a 1945 structure in a 2025 world

The UN was built when there were 51 member states. Today there are 193. The biggest decisions — peace and security — are made by the Security Council, which has five permanent members (the P5: US, UK, France, Russia, China). Each of them can veto any resolution. That made sense in 1945, when those five were the major Allied powers. Now it means that a single country can block action on genocide, climate disasters, or pandemics.

The three big reform challenges

1. Security Council composition

The Council has 15 seats: 5 permanent, 10 non-permanent (elected for two-year terms). Africa has 54 countries but zero permanent seats. Latin America has zero. India, the world's most populous country, has zero. Japan and Germany, the third and fourth largest economies, have zero. Every proposal to expand the Council — adding new permanent members, or more elected seats — gets blocked because the P5 do not want to dilute their power, and regional rivals cannot agree on who should get a seat.

2. The veto problem

Even if the Council were expanded, the veto remains. A single permanent member can kill any resolution, even if the other 14 members support it. Reform proposals include:

• Requiring two permanent members to veto together (instead of one)
• Banning the veto on issues like genocide or mass atrocities
• Simply abolishing it

None of these has passed because the P5 must approve any change to the UN Charter — and they will not vote to weaken their own power.

3. Funding and representation mismatch

The UN budget comes from member contributions. The US pays about 22%, China about 15%, Japan about 8%. But their voting power in the General Assembly is the same as Tuvalu (population 11,000) or Bhutan. Every country gets one vote. So countries that pay very little can block initiatives that major funders want. Meanwhile, the UN is chronically underfunded for its mandates — peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, climate action — because member states do not pay on time or in full. …

Understanding the Veto Power in the United Nations

Imagine a club where five senior members get a special privilege: even if everyone else in the club votes "yes" on a decision, any one of these five can single-handedly stop it. That is the veto power in the United Nations Security Council.

The Intuition: Why Have a Veto?

The UN was created in 1945, right after World War II. The five most powerful countries that won the war — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union (now Russia), and China — insisted on one condition before joining: they would not be outvoted on matters of international peace and security. They argued that if the UN tried to take military action against one of them, or force them into a decision they considered a threat to their own survival, the whole organisation would collapse. The veto was their safety net.

Think of it as a "break glass in case of emergency" button for the big powers. It ensures that the UN cannot be used to force a major power into a corner. The price of this safety net is that the Security Council can be paralysed when one of these five disagrees with the rest of the world.

The Precise Statement

The veto power is formally called the right of the permanent members to cast a negative vote on a substantive (non-procedural) matter.

Here is how it works in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) :

• The Security Council has 15 members: 5 permanent members (P5) and 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.
• For a decision to pass on a substantive matter (like imposing sanctions, authorising military force, or admitting a new UN member), it needs 9 votes in favour.
• But — and this is the critical part — among those 9 votes, all 5 permanent members must vote "yes" or at least abstain. If any one of the P5 votes "no", the resolution fails. That single "no" is the veto.

What the Veto Does NOT Cover

The veto only applies to substantive (non-procedural) matters. On procedural matters (like setting the agenda or deciding the time of the next meeting), a simple majority of 9 votes is enough, and no permanent member can veto it. The tricky part is that deciding whether a matter is procedural or substantive is itself a substantive question — and therefore subject to the veto. This is called the "double veto" , though it is rarely used today.

The Five Permanent Members (P5)