Ostensibly, the changes would be intended to sideline malign actors such as Russia and China.
When world leaders converge on Manhattan next week for the U.N. General Assembly’s annual high-level week — filled with speeches from heads of state and a circus of diplomatic side events — one of the Biden administration’s top priorities will be to fundamentally reshape the way in which key U.N. institutions work. Top officials say that their aim is to modernize U.N. institutions so that Russia and like-minded dictatorships cannot shield themselves from accountability.
Along the way, the administration might pursue a path that unilaterally disarms American diplomats as they face off against foreign adversaries at the U.N.
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield previewed this push during a speech in San Francisco this month:
We will advance efforts to reform the UN Security Council. That includes efforts like our co-sponsorship of the veto resolution that asks permanent members to explain their vetoes to the General Assembly. The Security Council should also better reflect the current global realities and incorporate more geographically diverse perspectives.
We should not defend an unsustainable and outdated status quo. Instead, we must demonstrate flexibility and willingness to compromise in the name of greater credibility and legitimacy. We should forge consensus around sensible and credible proposals to expand the Security Council’s membership.
The proximate inspiration for this effort seems to be Russia’s stonewalling at the Security Council, where it has wielded its veto, predictably, to shield Moscow from accountability for the Ukraine invasion and atrocities carried out by Russian troops throughout that campaign. The Biden administration moved successfully to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council this spring, after the mass killings at Bucha came to light. Thomas-Greenfield’s speech suggests that Washington is seeking a more fundamental solution to Russia’s attempts to evade accountability at the U.N.
It would certainly benefit the U.S. to counter the malign influence of authoritarian regimes at the U.N., but that’s easier said than done. Russia could veto any initiative to reform the Security Council. And given its possession of veto power, it seems unlikely that Russia would agree to any arrangement that would not also dilute Washington’s ability to unilaterally defend America’s interests at the U.N.
Securing the addition of new permanent members to the Security Council — beyond the current five permanent members, who all hold veto power — could conceivably be a boon for U.S. influence at the U.N. But again, getting Moscow — and Beijing, for that matter — to support such a push would likely require significant concessions.
An effort by the Biden administration to counter Russian intransigence at the U.N. in April is a case in point. The U.S. supported a resolution that triggers a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly within ten days of a Security Council veto, allowing every member of the U.N. to weigh in on the matter. Such a process is more or less innocuous, as it doesn’t concretely restrict Washington’s ability to block damaging Security Council measures. But the administration’s support of the resolution, which was adopted by consensus, could signal a worrying endgame, as Elliott Abrams wrote at the time: “It is one step in a long process that is meant to change the way the Security Council works, eventually by adding members and removing the veto — or making it subject to override by the General Assembly.”
Thomas-Greenfield and other officials have been remarkably vague about what their upcoming consultations on potential reforms would entail in concrete terms. Tellingly, though, they haven’t specifically mentioned reforms targeting the U.N. Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization, both of which are beholden to China and other dictatorships, as part of this new campaign, despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s pledges to make such reform efforts a priority.
Thomas-Greenfield told reporters today that Biden and Blinken will be addressing their U.N. reform push in further detail next week. It seems that, for now, this initiative is in its initial stages, but there are currently few indications that the U.S. will pursue shrewd, impactful, bare-knuckled diplomacy to sideline malign actors at the U.N.