As major powers act unilaterally, experts say UN faces crisis in New York

Experts warn the UN faces crises of funding, relevance, and Security Council gridlock.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, September 22, 2026 [Yuki Iwamura/AP]

As world leaders gather in New York for the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), experts say the institution is battling an existential crisis of funding, relevance and Security Council gridlock.

Major conflicts appear intractable, and powers like the United States and Russia can bend the UN’s Security Council to their will; member states are looking for new mechanisms to bring accountability to the venue and for a new secretary-general to voice their concerns. The body has been accused of failing to stop what its own experts have said is a genocide in Gaza.

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World leaders are not under any illusion that the UNGA is in good health, said Daniel Forti, head of UN Affairs at the International Crisis Group. Yet many still understand the venue’s power.

“The vast majority of leaders, from small states, from middle powers, and even a few from major powers, recognise the importance of a UN that is a global conversation platform,” Forti said.

Trying to weigh in where the Security Council fails

The UN is juggling multiple conflicts – from high-profile wars involving Iran to the often overlooked catastrophes in Sudan and Myanmar .

In the Ukraine war, the UN says more civilians were killed in the first eight months of 2026 than in the whole of 2025, and even NATO powers now say they worry about spillover into their countries.

Russia has repeatedly vetoed Security Council resolutions, but Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has continued to appear before the UNGA to urge member states to help stop Moscow.

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy spoke for the fifth time before the assembly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, urging leaders to further tighten economic measures meant to punish Moscow despite its vetoes of Security Council resolutions.

“Many of you here have seen more than once how the abuse of the veto at the UN weakens the world and pushes peace further away,” Zelenskyy said.

In the Israeli war on Gaza, the UN has labelled Israel’s conduct there a genocide , but it has struggled to exercise real agency. Security Council resolutions have been repeatedly vetoed, and UN relief agencies have been targeted by Israel without any accountability.

The ongoing war between the US, Israel and Iran is having economic impacts across the globe and threatens to plunge Yemen back into a civil war.

“From Ukraine, to Gaza, and Sudan, and also with what’s happening now in Iran, the veto problem leaves the UN hamstrung,” said Alanna O’Malley, professor and chair of Global Governance and Wealth and head of the Department of History at Erasmus University.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Al Jazeera’s James Bays this week that these conflicts were having real humanitarian impacts worldwide, including reduced food access, rising fuel prices, and global inflation.

The UNGA will allow the opportunity for some discussions for parties involved in these kinds of conflicts, but it is unlikely they can reach major agreements, said Forti.

But the assembly is still the only forum where all 193 member states are equal, and nations have tried to invoke new procedures and reach back into historical mechanisms to try and mitigate the veto deadlocks, O’Malley said.

A 1950 resolution, dating from a deadlock over the Korean War, has allowed the UNGA to debate issues vetoed in the Security Council. And in 2022, an impasse over Ukraine generated a new mechanism forcing any permanent council representative – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US, often called the P5 – to come before the UNGA and explain when it uses the veto.

“The idea is to build more accountability into the system for the P5, to make the veto not just harder to use, but also ensure it uses a lot of political capital,” O’Malley said.

Calls for reforms have only increased since 2023 and Israel’s war on Gaza, O’Malley said, with “unprecedented” majority votes in the UNGA challenging the Security Council.

Getting major powers to buy in

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the UNGA, though, is remaining relevant as major global powers go their own way.

The administration of US President Trump has pushed through its own Board of Peace, a body that has accomplished few of its goals but has secured Security Council approval and claims to take on responsibilities previously handled by UN agencies, like distributing aid or managing refugees.

Unhappy with the UN, Trump has also imposed sanctions on the body’s special rapporteurs, as well as organisations like the International Criminal Court.

Washington, though, may not be the only government looking to strike out on its own.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is in the US this week, but he will not be attending the UNGA. He last addressed the body in 2021 via video, but this year he will skip it altogether, opting instead for one-on-one talks with US President Trump. China has positive views of the UN, often using the Security Council to weigh in on global issues, Forti said, but it is also looking for alternatives, through venues like BRICS and the SCO, to strengthen multilateralism.

The impetus to look for alternatives to the UN, even Secretary Guterres admits, is driven by the fact that the Security Council is unable to pass binding resolutions in the most controversial situations, because permanent members can simply veto them based on their own interests.

Guterres told Al Jazeera this week that kind of inaction was creating an “environment of impunity”, where the behaviour of major global powers was inspiring middle powers and others to “believe that they can do whatever they want because nothing will happen to them”.

The search for the next secretary-general

Guterres’s term ends on December 31, and the Security Council is expected to announce its recommendation for who will replace him.

“We had a secretary-general who didn’t have a lot of political capital to expend to solve these conflicts, and he hasn’t taken great initiative on a lot of them,” said O’Malley.

Guterres did, for example, draw on rarely used Article 99 powers in 2023 to bring the Gaza issue before the Security Council. But the UN also faces major funding problems, with major donors like the US cutting back, making it difficult to deliver aid in places like the West Bank and Gaza. “So he [Guterres] also has no actual financial capital,” O’Malley said.

Candidates to replace Guterres must win at least nine of the 15 votes from the council, and avoid a veto by any of the P5, to be put before the UNGA for a vote.

Forti said member states are looking for someone to refocus on preventing wars, and also deal with criticism that the UN has become unwieldy and costly.

“They will have to balance the UN’s diplomatic work, its impact, with financial cuts and racing to the bottom,” Forti said.

专家警告称，联合国面临资金危机、影响力危机和安理会僵局。

2026年9月22日星期二，巴西总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦在联合国总部举行的第81届联合国大会上发表讲话。[岩村由纪/美联社]

世界各国领导人齐聚纽约参加第81届联合国大会之际，专家表示，联合国正面临资金、影响力以及安理会僵局等生存危机。

重大冲突似乎难以解决，美国和俄罗斯等大国能够左右联合国安理会的决策；成员国正在寻求新的机制来加强安理会的问责制，并希望新任秘书长能够代表它们表达关切。安理会被指责未能阻止其专家所称的加沙种族灭绝。

联合国秘书长警告：地缘政治分歧加剧安理会不作为（列表1/3）

古特雷斯：联合国安理会瘫痪，世界局势日益恶化（共3条，此为第2条）

联合国启动下一任秘书长遴选工作，面临日益严峻的挑战（共3项，此为第3项）

国际危机组织联合国事务负责人丹尼尔·福蒂表示，世界各国领导人都清楚联合国大会目前状况良好。然而，许多人仍然明白联合国大会的重要性。

福蒂说：“绝大多数领导人，无论是来自小国、中等强国，还是少数来自大国的领导人，都认识到联合国作为全球对话平台的重要性。”

试图在安理会失职的地方发挥作用

联合国正在努力应对多起冲突——从备受瞩目的伊朗战争到经常被忽视的苏丹和缅甸灾难。

联合国表示，在乌克兰战争中，2026 年前八个月的平民死亡人数超过了 2025 年全年的死亡人数，甚至北约国家现在也表示担心战争蔓延到本国。

俄罗斯多次否决安理会决议，但乌克兰总统泽连斯基仍继续出席联合国大会，敦促成员国帮助阻止莫斯科。

周三，泽连斯基自俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰以来第五次在联合国大会上发表讲话，敦促各国领导人进一步收紧旨在惩罚莫斯科的经济措施，尽管莫斯科否决了安理会决议。

泽连斯基说：“在座的许多人不止一次地看到，在联合国滥用否决权是如何削弱世界，并将和平推得更远的。”

在以色列对加沙的战争中，联合国已将以色列的行为定性为种族灭绝，但却难以真正发挥作用。安理会决议屡遭否决，联合国救援机构也成为以色列的攻击目标，而以色列却无需承担任何责任。

美国、以色列和伊朗之间持续不断的战争正在对全球经济产生影响，并有可能使也门再次陷入内战。

“从乌克兰到加沙和苏丹，以及现在伊朗发生的事情，否决权问题让联合国束手束脚，”鹿特丹伊拉斯姆斯大学全球治理与财富教授兼历史系主任阿拉娜·奥马利说。

联合国秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯本周告诉半岛电视台的詹姆斯·贝斯，这些冲突正在对全世界造成真正的人道主义影响，包括粮食获取减少、燃料价格上涨和全球通货膨胀。

福蒂表示，联合国大会将为卷入此类冲突的各方提供一些讨论的机会，但他们不太可能达成重大协议。

奥马利表示，但大会仍然是所有 193 个成员国地位平等的唯一论坛，各国都试图援引新程序和历史机制来缓解否决权僵局。

1950年的一项决议源于朝鲜战争僵局，该决议允许联合国大会就安理会否决的议题进行辩论。2022年，乌克兰问题陷入僵局，由此催生了一种新的机制，迫使安理会常任理事国——中国、法国、俄罗斯、英国和美国（通常被称为“五常”）——在行使否决权时，必须到联合国大会作证并解释原因。

奥马利说：“我们的想法是，在五大常任理事国（P5）的制度中建立更多的问责机制，不仅要让否决权更难使用，还要确保它需要消耗大量的政治资本。”

奥马利表示，自 2023 年以色列对加沙发动战争以来，要求改革的呼声有增无减，联合国大会上“史无前例”的多数票对安理会提出了挑战。

让主要大国参与进来

不过，联合国大会面临的最大挑战或许在于，随着主要全球大国各自为政，如何保持其重要性。

美国总统特朗普的政府强行成立了自己的和平委员会，该机构虽然鲜有目标实现，但已获得安理会批准，并声称承担此前由联合国机构负责的职责，例如分发援助或管理难民。

特朗普对联合国不满，还对该机构的特别报告员以及国际刑事法院等组织实施了制裁。

不过，华盛顿可能不是唯一一个想要独立自主的政府。

中国国家主席习近平本周访问美国，但他不会出席联合国大会。他上一次在联合国大会上发表讲话是在2021年，当时是通过视频方式，但今年他将完全缺席，转而选择与美国总统特朗普进行一对一会谈。福蒂表示，中国对联合国持积极态度，经常利用安理会就全球问题发表意见，但中国也在寻求其他途径，例如通过金砖国家和上海合作组织等平台，来加强多边主义。

就连国务卿古特雷斯也承认，寻求联合国替代方案的动力源于这样一个事实：安全理事会无法在最具争议的情况下通过具有约束力的决议，因为常任理事国可以根据自身利益否决这些决议。

古特雷斯本周告诉半岛电视台，这种不作为正在营造一种“有罪不罚的环境”，主要全球大国的行为正在激励中等强国和其他国家“相信他们可以为所欲为，因为不会对他们造成任何影响”。

寻找下一任秘书长

古特雷斯的任期将于12月31日结束，安理会预计将宣布其对继任者的建议。

奥马利说：“我们的秘书长没有足够的政治资本来解决这些冲突，而且他在很多冲突问题上也没有采取什么积极主动的措施。”

例如，古特雷斯曾在2023年动用鲜少使用的《联合国宪章》第99条赋予的权力，将加沙问题提交安理会。但联合国也面临着严重的资金问题，美国等主要捐助国削减开支，使得向西岸和加沙等地提供援助变得困难。“所以他（古特雷斯）实际上也没有任何资金，”奥马利说道。

取代古特雷斯的候选人必须赢得安理会 15 票中的至少 9 票，并且避免被五常中的任何一个否决，才能提交联合国大会进行投票。

福蒂表示，成员国正在寻找能够重新聚焦于防止战争的人，同时也要应对联合国变得臃肿且成本高昂的批评。

“他们必须在联合国的外交工作及其影响与财政削减和竞相降低标准之间取得平衡，”福蒂说。