Statement on the United Nations
UN Day, 24th October 2025
Strengthening the UN has always been a key element in MAW’s outlook, and in our programme of work. MAW was founded in the wake of the historic Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in 1999. In retrospect it is clear that the end of the last century was a more favourable time for international peace-making, human rights promotion and democracy-building than the period we are living through now.
How can the UN now play a positive role when so many states – large and small – appear to have been captured by ultra-nationalist movements and autocratic leaders? Most of the latter – and Trump is only one of many – have little time for the UN, and indeed for multilateral cooperation in general.
Given this dispiriting context it is tempting to make comparisons with the 1930s and the demise of the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations. The optimism that accompanied the creation of the UN itself was paid for in the cataclysm of world war. That is the one path that must absolutely be avoided at all costs – if nothing else, because nine member states possess nuclear weapons, and a major conflagration could well spell the end of life on earth.
But the planet faces other existential threats too: notably climate change and biodiversity loss. Out-of-control AI developments may well prove to be another.
For all these reasons then, the UN simply has to be rescued from the paralysis brought about by the rivalry between authoritarian powers. Challenges to the survival of the planet and of humanity itself can only be met by collective global action.
This is not to suggest that the paralysis is inhibiting all of the UN’s work. So often mass media concentrate on the veto in the Security Council, ignoring or downplaying the tremendous ongoing work of the UN’s many agencies, especially in the Global South, and the continuing deliberations of the General Assembly and the ECOSOC bodies. But the agencies are having to cope with drastically reduced budgets, and the GA’s resolutions are often found to have no implementation.
At the local and national level, autocratic regimes can only be rolled back by political mobilisations rooted in communities and based on fully democratic values. That is where most of us will be called to be active.
At the UN level, there are more specialist roles: for diplomats (reaching out to like-minded states); for NGOs (building coalitions to bring pressure on both governments and UN structures); for media workers (telling the UN story and reporting on the diplomatic dance); for academics (studying the problems and making recommendations); not to mention the UN’s own staff and their multiple functions.
So, as so often, it is a question of: Everyone can do something.
Paying no attention to the UN is not an option. There is simply far too much at stake.
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