Is the United Nations still relevant?

This is a genuinely contested question, and the debate has only intensified in recent months as the UN marks its 81st General Assembly session amid overlapping global crises. Here's a balanced picture based on current discussions:

The case that the UN is fading in relevance

The Security Council—the body meant to enforce collective security—is widely seen as paralyzed. Analysts note that the Council's structure, centred around five permanent members with veto powers, is increasingly unable to address today's conflicts, and in 2025, permanent members cast vetoes blocking action on Gaza and Ukraine. Critics argue the Council's permanent members represent a minority of the world's people, reflecting a 1945 power structure rather than today's world.

This dysfunction was on stark display at the recent General Assembly. When the president of the United States, the country that was the driving force behind the founding of the U.N., stood before the General Assembly and called for the annihilation of another country, former US Ambassador Susan Rice said it showed "just how far we've strayed from the founding vision of the U.N."

Some commentators have gone further, arguing the institution is in genuine crisis: created with the noble mission of preventing war, protecting human rights, and promoting peace, it now faces a crisis of relevance, with critics saying too often, the UN functions more as a humanitarian cleanup crew than as a proactive force for peace. There's even a competing US-led initiative emerging: the launch of a new U.S.-led Board of Peace is a fairly clear effort to offer a U.S.-dominated alternative to a languishing U.N. Security Council.

Adding to the strain, 2025 was gripped by a budgetary crisis and the UN was unable to respond to catastrophic wars in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, spending much of the year focused on internal reform instead.

The case that it still matters

Despite this, most serious analysts stop short of declaring the UN obsolete. Susan Rice's verdict is telling: "I would say it is barely still relevant, most importantly because its operational humanitarian agencies are delivering lifesaving assistance to millions and millions around the world."

Even reform-focused critics acknowledge the Council still does real work—in 2025 alone, the Council adopted 44 resolutions, including 24 under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, covering measures like sanctions and use-of-force authorizations. And some experts argue the deeper problem isn't the UN itself but the lack of great-power cooperation within it: without sustained deconfliction among the P5, the U.N. cannot function as a system of collective security—suggesting the institution is a mirror of geopolitics rather than the cause of paralysis.

Reform is the central live debate

Rather than debating relevance in the abstract, most of 2026's discourse centers on whether reform can save the institution. Africa's long-running campaign for permanent representation on the Security Council is back in focus at the 81st General Assembly, and Guterres used his final address to renew his call for Security Council reform, saying it must become more representative. But structural change faces steep odds: changing the Council's permanent membership would require a Charter amendment under Article 108, requiring approval by two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of members, including all five permanent members—giving the current P5 veto power over their own dilution.

Bottom line

The UN's peace-and-security function—especially the Security Council—is widely seen as weakened and often paralyzed by great-power rivalry, and 2025–2026 has arguably been one of its most tested periods. But its humanitarian, development, and specialized agencies still operate at massive scale, and the institution remains the only near-universal forum where nearly every country's leaders show up and negotiate. So the honest answer is: it's "relevant" in a diminished, contested sense—less as guarantor of global peace and more as humanitarian lifeline and diplomatic venue—with its future credibility hinging on whether Security Council reform (long stalled) can actually happen.