Indian Council of World Affairs

As the United Nations (UN) marks its 80^th anniversary this year, it is time to assess the contributions of two bodies created by the UN Charter to its objective of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. The UN Security Council (UNSC), created by Chapter V of the Charter, is given the “primary responsibility” for maintaining international peace and security. Its decisions, taken solely on the basis of agreement between its non-elected five permanent members (P5), have increasingly fallen short in responding to threats to international peace and security over the past 80 years. The UN General Assembly (UNGA), created by Chapter IV of the Charter, is the only “universal” body of all UN 193 member-states. Since 1946, it has taken decisions on peace and security issues proposed by UN member-states in a democratic, transparent manner, calibrating the Charter’s provisions with the momentous changes that have taken place on the ground since 1945. The difference in decision-making of the selective UNSC and the universal UNGA is an anomaly created by the Charter. For the majority of UN member-states, particularly developing countries of the Global South, the biggest challenge today is to reconcile this anomaly, empowering the UNGA to use the Charter’s provisions to support peace, security, and development in a fairer and non-exclusionary manner. 

Background

The anomaly in decision-making between the UNGA and the UNSC can be traced back to the creation of the UN itself. In January 1942, 26 “allied” countries (including India and China from Asia) were invited by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the United States (US) to coordinate their military campaign against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. At the initiative of President Roosevelt, these 26 participants also decided to create a new structure for international relations after their victory in the war.

President Roosevelt’s initiative was meant to expand the support for the Atlantic Charter, which he and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom (UK) had agreed upon in August 1941. The agreement had eight points of “a programme of common purposes and principles”. One of the points, which historians assert was included due to the insistence of President Roosevelt, was “self-determination of all peoples”. This made the Atlantic Charter relevant for India, which had been seeking self-determination from British colonial rule since before the First World War.[1]

It was President Roosevelt’s idea to name the new international structure the “United Nations”. The outcome of the Washington Conference was titled the “Declaration by United Nations”, the first time “United Nations” entered the diplomatic lexicon.[2] From 1942 to February 1945, all major decisions taken to create the United Nations, and its supporting structures of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, were negotiated as part of the process launched by the Washington Conference.

Between 18 October - 1 November 1943, the four major military allies (the US, UK, Soviet Union, and Republic of China) met in Moscow. Their Declaration “recognize[d] the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving States, and open to membership by all such States, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security”.[3]

On 26 November 1943, at the Cairo Conference between the US, UK, and China, the three powers agreed to coordinate their military campaign against Japan. At this meeting, China achieved its objective of being acknowledged as a “great power”.[4] This outcome would have an impact on the emerging architecture of the UN and the UNSC in 1945.

President Roosevelt’s concept of a general assembly for the new organization was discussed during the Tehran Conference in December 1943 by the US, UK, and the Soviet Union. According to U.S. diplomatic records, President Roosevelt proposed “an assembly of all member states and a 10-member executive committee to discuss social and economic issues.” The US, UK, Soviet Union, and China would enforce peace as “the four policemen.”[5]

The Cairo and Tehran meetings in 1943 were followed by the Dumbarton Oaks meetings in the United States between the four powers, from 21 August to 7 October 1944. The meetings were conducted in a series of trilateral discussions due to communist Soviet Union’s refusal to negotiate directly with the non-communist Republic of China. The US and UK met with the Soviet Union and Republic of China separately. The final draft of the Dumbarton Oaks meetings issued on 9 October 1944 became the working text of the negotiators at the San Francisco Conference from 25 April 1945. The draft “recommended a General Assembly of all member states and a Security Council consisting of the Big Four plus six members chosen by the Assembly.” [6]

At the Yalta Conference held between 4-11 February 1945, the US, UK, and the Soviet Union mutually agreed on their “sphere of influence” in Europe and East Asia. They also agreed on an

“American plan concerning voting procedures in the Security Council, which had been expanded to five permanent members following the inclusion of France. Each of these permanent members was to hold a veto on decisions before the Security Council.”[7]

On 12 April 1945, President Roosevelt, the “architect” and driver of the process to create the United Nations, died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 63. He was succeeded as President by Vice-President Harry S. Truman, who had not participated in discussion within Roosevelt’s inner circle and negotiations regarding the creation of the UN.  In retrospect, the death of President Roosevelt had an adverse impact on US foreign policy at a critical time in the Second World War. It took away the highly personalized conduct of summit-level diplomacy that enabled President Roosevelt to broker compromises on strategy and policies between the four major powers. It also created space for the emergence of a confrontational, instead of cooperative, interaction between the future P5 of the UNSC. 

On 25 April 1945, representatives of 50 states including the self-selected P5 of the UNSC converged in San Francisco to discuss, negotiate, and adopt the UN Charter. The “United Nations Conference on International Organization”, as the meeting was formally called, concluded on 26 June 1945 with the signature by these 50 states on the UN Charter. China, as the first Allied state to go to war with an Axis power (Japan), was selected as the first signatory of the UN Charter.

Implementing the Charter

It is useful to assess how the two bodies created by the Charter have implemented their mandates since 1945 to appreciate the challenges facing the UN today. Article 25 of the Charter deliberately gives a legally binding character to decisions of the UNSC, which are taken on the basis of P5 solidarity represented by the words “concurring votes of the permanent members” in Article 27.3. At the same time, the Charter deliberately weakens any role of the UNGA on issues of peace and security by explicitly restricting the UNGA’s role under Article 12 to “make any recommendation” on an issue on the UNSC’s agenda.

Between 1946-2024, two parallel processes in the UN’s handling of international peace and security issues have become apparent. On the one hand, the UNSC has veered away from its primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security. On the other hand, the UNGA, despite the restrictions placed on its role by the Charter, has incrementally added substance to the provisions of the Charter on peace and security through its initiatives. This has impacted on the implementation of the central objective of the treaty for “the pacific settlement of disputes,” through negotiation and diplomacy, elaborated in Chapter VI of the Charter.[8]

Three factors have played a role in this evolution. First, the increasing breakdown of P5 solidarity, which has significantly eroded the basis on which the UN Charter empowered the UNSC with its wide-ranging, non-democratic powers of decision-making, including the veto. Second, the UN’s increasingly ineffective response to a mushrooming of conflicts, that has a tangible human impact and undermines the Charter’s commitment to peace and security. Third, the introduction into the Charter’s framework of an interlinked paradigm of peace, security, and development. This has gradually shifted the focus of the UN away from the narrow “use of force” framework of peace and security, with its emphasis on rules of state behaviour, to a wider human-centric framework.

(a)  Fracturing of P5 solidarity

The first issue to fracture P5 solidarity was mutual distrust. Recently declassified documents reveal that the fracturing of P5 solidarity began even as negotiations led by the US, UK, Soviet Union and Republic of China, were going on in San Francisco on the UN Charter. In May 1945, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill commissioned a covert plan called “Operation Unthinkable” to bring about regime change in the Soviet Union.[9] In August 1945, barely weeks after signing the Charter, the US dropped atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.[10] This unilateral move unleased a nuclear arms race within today’s P5. The Soviet Union tested its nuclear weapon in 1949, Great Britain in 1952, France in 1960, and the People’s Republic of China in 1964. Instead of cooperating to achieve one of the major objectives outlined in Article 1.1 of the Charter to “take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace”, the P5 nuclear arms race significantly expanded the threats to peace and security facing mankind.

The first UNSC veto was cast on 16 February 1946, when the Council was hearing a complaint by Lebanon and Syria seeking the withdrawal of UK and French military troops from their territories after the end of the Second World War. Although the Soviet Union proposed amendments to a text tabled by the US, that were acceptable to Syria and Lebanon, the UNSC voted to reject the amendments. This made the Soviet Union call for a vote on the proposed text of the UNSC decision. Seven out of the 10 UNSC members supported the text, but the Soviet Union opposed the text since its proposed amendments had not been agreed to. By invoking the language of Article 27.3 of the Charter, the Soviet Union refused to give its concurring vote in favour of the decision, and “vetoed” it.[11] The veto would thereafter become a barometer of confrontation within the P5, and not a rare transitional “safeguard” measure that delegations like India[12] had assumed it would be during the UN Charter negotiations.

The second issue to fracture P5 unity was the creation of armed military alliances led by the Western P5 states and the Soviet Union respectively. The ground for a confrontational approach had been laid in March 1946, when Winston Churchill, who had been replaced as Prime Minister after his defeat in the UK’s national elections, delivered his well-known “iron curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri in the presence of US President Truman. Outlining the emerging ideological confrontation between “Western Democracies” and Soviet communism, Churchill advocated “a special relationship” between the UK and US. He also proposed the creation of an “international armed force” which would be at the disposal of the UN.[13]

The impact of Churchill’s proposals on the functioning of the UNSC became evident from June 1946 onwards. Between 18 June 1946 and 18 August 1948, the Soviet Union cast its veto 26 times to block the UNSC from adopting decisions, including applications for UN membership by 15 states which the Soviet Union considered “pro-Western”. On 25 October 1948, the Soviet Union vetoed a UNSC resolution sponsored by the US, UK, and France for lifting the blockade of Berlin.[14]

The reintegration of divided Germany into post-Second World War international relations played a major role in fomenting the ideological confrontation of the Cold War. Apart from making Europe its central focus, the “German Question” led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on 4 April 1949. The NATO was established by a meeting of Western powers in Washington DC “to provide collective security against the Soviet Union”.[15]

The integration of West Germany into the NATO on 6 May 1955 immediately triggered the formation of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact on 14 May 1955.[16] The P5’s activity in the UNSC reflected the priorities of their armed confrontation, particularly in the use of Soviet vetoes on the Suez Crisis in October 1956, the Hungarian uprising in November 1956, and the Czechoslovak uprising in August 1968. The end of the Cold War witnessed the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in July 1991. On the other hand, the existence and expansion of the NATO after the end of the Cold War[17] continues to impact on the UNSC, deeply polarizing its three NATO and two non-NATO permanent members, of whom one (China) continues to be ideologically a communist state.

(b)  Mushrooming of conflicts

The first major armed conflict facing the UN after its creation was the Korean War of 1950. The UN’s response to this conflict illustrated the dilemma between a UNSC impaired by P5 confrontation, and a deliberately weak UNGA. In August 1950, the Soviet Union cast a veto in the UNSC on a US draft resolution on the Korean conflict. The US took the initiative under Article 14 of the Charter to move the UNGA to claim subsidiary responsibility for international peace and security and handle the issue.

Meeting in an “emergency session”,[18] the UNGA assessed that due to “the lack of unanimity of the permanent members” the UNSC was failing in its primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security in the Korean conflict. The UNGA adopted resolution 377 on 3 November 1950,[19] referred to popularly as the “Uniting for Peace” resolution, recommending the use of collective measures to maintain international peace and security.

Under Article 10 of the Charter, as a UNGA “recommendation”, the Uniting for Peace UNGA resolution was not legally binding. However, the resolution served the purpose of public diplomacy and exhibited the moral strength of majority opinion among UN member-states on how a conflict deadlocked in the UNSC due to the veto should be resolved. Each of the subsequent 11 “emergency sessions” of the UNGA[20] have illustrated this point.

Some UNGA Uniting for Peace resolutions have highlighted the culpability of the UNSC and its P5 in not fulfilling their obligations under the Charter. In such cases, though the UNSC has successfully adopted a decision, it has shied away from using the enforcement powers given by the Charter to the UNSC to ensure compliance, resulting in an intensification of the original conflict with significant collateral human and material damage. Two such examples are the non-enforcement of UNSC resolution 242 of 1967 on the Middle East which outlawed “the acquisition of territory by war”,[21] and the non-enforcement of UNSC resolution 2202 of February 2015 on Ukraine which endorsed the negotiated political settlement of the conflict.[22]

Although the Charter mandates the UNSC to act against “aggression”, it does not define “aggression”. From 1952 onwards, the UNGA established special committees to define aggression. Their work enabled the UNGA to unanimously adopt a Definition of Aggression annexed to UNGA resolution 3314 (XXIX)[23] in December 1974. The UNGA recommended that the UNSC should use this Definition for acting under the provisions on peace and security of the Charter.  However, the UNSC appears to have ignored the UNGA’s recommendation. “Aggression” continues to rear its head regularly in international relations, putting more issues onto the UNSC’s heavy agenda.

Today, the UNSC agenda deals with 58 region-specific conflicts (29 from Africa, 18 from Asia and the Middle East, 7 from Europe and 4 from the Americas). Decisions on these conflicts are taken by the P5, four of whom are from Europe and the Americas, and one from Asia, with none from Africa. Inevitably, the lack of permanent members from developing countries of the Global South in UNSC decision-making has prevented a cohesive, inclusive and effective approach to the maintenance of international peace and security. As the UN Secretary-General reported that in 2022, as many as 2 billion people across the world were impacted by these conflicts.[24]

From time to time, the UN has responded to new challenges to peace and security by innovating mechanisms not specifically provided for in the Charter. One innovation is UN peacekeeping, with the first unarmed observer mission (UNTSO) deployed in the Middle East on 29 May 1948. The UNGA deployed the first armed peacekeeping mission (UNEF-1) during the Suez Crisis in 1956.[25] Since the end of the Cold War, as many as 50 peacekeeping missions have been deployed by the UNSC. In a “neo-colonial” manner, the mandates of these missions are written by the 3 Western P5 members as “penholders”, with troops and resources being contributed by a large majority of UN member-states.[26] The budget for these operations is approved by the UNGA under Article 17 of the Charter.[27]

Despite this, most post-Cold War UN peacekeeping missions have faced challenges, that have been regularly discussed in the C-24 Committee of the UNGA. The recommendation from the UNGA to the UNSC to make effective use of peacekeeping resources has fallen on deaf ears, with the UNSC increasingly succumbing to the individual priorities of its P5 “penholders”. [28] As a result, some UN member-states hosting such operations have sought their removal or downsizing, despite the adverse impact on large numbers of civilians caught in conflict.[29]

Ongoing conflicts across the world have provided fertile ground for the growth of terrorism, a threat not specifically included in the Charter. The uncoordinated approach of the UN to countering terrorism illustrates the challenges facing the organization. In 1972, the UNGA had taken the lead to create an international legal framework to prosecute and punish terrorism following the terrorist killing of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics. India, which had been the chair of the Ad Hoc group of the UNGA on this issue, had tabled a draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) in the UNGA first in 1996, and then again in 2000.

However, the UNSC, led by the US, decided to place countering terrorism on its agenda following the 9/11 terror attacks on the US. Implicitly, this attracted Article 12 of the Charter, keeping the UNGA at bay while the UNSC adopted resolution 1368 on 12 September 2001. [30]  Since 2001, the UNSC has adopted 50 specific resolutions to counter terrorism.[31] Most of these decisions have remained ineffective due to the use of double standards by P5 members on enforcing the UNSC resolutions, including enforcement measures like sanctions lists regulated by Chapter VII of the Charter.

Recent examples of the UNSC’s role in the mainstreaming of terrorism include the hand-over of the governance of an entire UN member-state (Afghanistan) in April 2021 to the UNSC-proscribed Taliban dominated by the Haqqani Network,[32] and a similar blind eye to the capture of political power in Syria in December 2024 by an armed grouping that includes the UNSC-proscribed Al Nusra Front.[33]  The UNSC’s ambivalent “political” approach in not naming the state of origin of the terrorists who attacked dozens of innocent tourists in Pahalgam, India in April 2025 [34] is in keeping with the P5’s track record of using the UNSC to look at terrorist acts in a geo-political and not legal framework.

This use of double standards has severely undermined the UN’s response to terrorism, which has targeted UN member-states and the UN itself. The UNGA’s role in countering terrorism has been limited to supporting capacity building in UN member-states through its grandly named “Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy” adopted in 2006.[35] This has effectively derailed a holistic UN response to countering the threat posed by terrorism to peace, security, and development.

(c)  Peace, security, and development

The increase in the UNGA’s membership from 51 states in 1945 to 193 states in 2024 has resulted in demands to review the provisions of the UN Charter adopted in 1945, so that the priorities of the majority of the new UNGA member-states can be supported by the Charter. The first statement in the UNGA bringing the “development dimension” into the discussions on peace and security, eschewing attempts to drag member-states into the Cold War, was made by India on 19 September 1947.[36]

Buttressed by the increasing number of newly independent member-states, the UNGA has taken significant initiatives relating to the UN Charter. The most successful of these are the historic UNGA resolutions of December 1963, amending Articles 23, 27, 61 of the Charter to provide greater representation to developing countries of the Global South in the UNSC and ECOSOC.[37] The resistance of the P5 to expanding the UNSC was overcome by a two-third majority vote in the UNGA, and despite opposing the amendment to the Charter, the P5 did not use their veto powers under Article 108 of the Charter to block the result. Consequently, since 1965, the voice of the Global South has resonated in the policy making platforms of the UN, seeking to influence the Charter’s provisions on peace and security by adding the “development dimension”.

Inevitably, due to the differences in the Charter’s provisions on decision-making in the UNSC and the UNGA/ECOSOC (where all elected states have one equal vote, and no state has a veto), the impact of the Charter amendment of 1963 has been felt more in the UNGA/ECOSOC. Due to their common experience since 1965 of not having their views integrated into UNSC decisions as elected UNSC members do not have the veto, a group of 10 developing countries succeeded in inscribing on the UNGA agenda the “question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council” in November 1979. This reflected their objective of participating on an equal basis with the veto-wielding P5 in UNSC decision-making.[38]  It was only after the end of the Cold War that the UNGA found it possible, in December 1993, to agree to launch discussions through an Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on this topic inscribed on its agenda.[39]

In contrast, developing countries were able to use their increasing presence in the UNGA to consolidate their political rights. This was pursued under the Charter’s commitment to “self-determination” through the UNGA’s powers to develop international law as customary law under Article 13 of the Charter. The UNGA’s Declaration on the Right to Development in December 1986[40] was adopted by a two-thirds majority vote with only the US opposed to it. The significance of the UNGA recognizing “development as an inalienable human right”, integral to the “right to self-determination”, cannot be underestimated in the Global South’s campaign to participate as equal partners in the UN, including the UNSC.

After the 1992 UN Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, developing countries negotiated their rights to participate according to their capacities (the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” contained in Article 3.1 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).[41] In the 1995 World Trade Organization Agreement, developing countries integrated their right to “special and differential treatment” as part of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 1994, which was annexed to the WTO Agreement as the “Enabling Clause”. [42]

The acknowledgement of the political dimensions of development, environmental, and trade issues for developing countries was carried into the UN’s human rights pillar with the creation of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) by the UNGA in a recorded vote in April 2006, which was opposed by the US.[43] Under this decision, a systemic peer-review of human rights in individual UN member-states has been undertaken by the elected 47-member-state HRC, extending international support to individual member-states to meet their national objectives. Decisions of the HRC are taken, as in the UNGA, by consensus or a majority vote. No elected member-state of the HRC has any veto right.

At its 60^th anniversary Summit in September 2005, world leaders including from P5 states bit the bullet on UNSC reforms. The Summit unanimously mandated “early reforms” of the UNSC, “in order to make it more broadly representative, efficient and transparent and thus to further enhance its effectiveness and the legitimacy and implementation of its decisions”.[44] The UNGA followed up this mandate in 2008 through its unanimous decision to launch Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on UNSC reform with five key issues – categories of membership; the question of the veto; regional representation; the size of an enlarged Security Council and its working methods; and the relationship between the Council and the UNGA.[45]

Despite this clear mandate, the P5 and its proxies in the UNGA have deadlocked the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on UNSC reform mandated by the UNGA through procedural measures. For example, the IGN on UNSC reform is the only UNGA process that does not follow the UNGA rules of procedure.

The Preamble of Agenda 2030, adopted unanimously by world leaders at the UN’s 70^th anniversary Summit in September 2015, encapsulated the new UN approach to peace, security, and development by affirming that “there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development”.[46]

The challenges ahead

The P5’s fracturing within the UNSC has been accompanied by significant changes in the individual policies of these major powers of 1945. The “special relationship” between the US and UK is unravelling. The UK and France have lost their empires. The UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016 signalled a return to bilateralism, ending 47 years of economic integration with the EU.[47] Under the Trump Administration, the US has similarly turned its back on leading international cooperation through the UN Charter, preferring instead to enter into bilateral arrangements that often contradict the core principles negotiated by the Global South into international treaties. These include the use of unilateral sanctions measures and the application of “reciprocal tariffs”. The Soviet Union and the Republic of China, still mentioned in Article 23.1 of the Charter, have been replaced by the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. The global impact of the P5 of 1945 on peace and security in the 21^st century is not the same as conceptualized by the Charter.

This opens the opportunity for the Global South to tailor the UN Charter as a supportive international political treaty framework for the socio-economic transformation of its members. The biggest challenge to such an effort today comes from an increasingly coordinated attempt by the Global North led by the US to erase the “the right to development” as an inalienable human right from the multilateral framework.[48] This includes the use of emerging digital technologies to accelerate inclusive socio-economic growth and governance. The UNGA’s Summit of the Future held in September 2024 adopted a Pact for the Future which effectively postponed any time-bound outcomes on issues of significance for the Global South, including, but not limited to, UNSC reform.[49]

In such a situation, the Global South must find solutions within the UN Charter itself.  Article 109 of the Charter was negotiated as a compromise provision by the US and its fellow sponsoring states at San Francisco in 1945. It provides for a review of all the provisions of the UN Charter through a General Conference. Since the original timeframe for convening such a General Conference by 1955 has passed, under Article 109.3 of the Charter, a General Conference can be convened by a decision taken by a majority of the UNGA member-states and seven out of the 15 states in the UNSC (without any use of the veto). Contrary to some assertions, Article 109 of the UN Charter has not been implemented so far. In fact, UNGA resolution 992 adopted at the 10^th UNGA Session in November 1955 specifically decided that the proposed General Conference of the UN “shall be held at an appropriate time”.[50]

At such a General Conference, the negotiating history of the UN Charter from the San Francisco Conference and new realities should become the basis for discussion by UN member-states when reviewing the provisions of the Charter. This would acknowledge the fact that about 140 current member-states of the UN did not participate in the negotiation of the Charter in 1945 as sovereign states. In order to be substantive and forward-looking, discussions on all the provisions of the Charter would need to be held in a multiple stakeholder format, as the implementation, including resources and technologies to secure peace, security and development, has to be a multiple stakeholder process.

The objective must be to assert the primacy of the UNGA in all legally binding decisions taken by the UN on peace, security and socio-economic development with a view to making global governance more democratic, diverse, inclusive and fair. The objective would also be to reduce the salience of a fractious and apathetic UNSC in favour of universal decision-making processes. The Global South has to lead in achieving this goal by prioritizing the convening of a Charter Review General Conference without delay.

***** 

*Ambassador Asoke Mukerji retired from the Indian Foreign Service in December 2015 as India’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in New York.

Endnotes

[1] U.S. Department of State, “The Atlantic Conference and Charter, 1941”. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/atlantic-conf

[2] Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, I.C.S., the Agent-General of India in Washington D.C., signed the Declaration on behalf of India.

[3] United Nations, “Preparatory years: UN Charter History”.  https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un/preparatory-years

[4] U.S. Department of State, “Final Text of the (Cairo) Communique”, 26 November 1943. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943CairoTehran/d343

[5] U.S. Department of State, “The Formation of the United Nations, 1945”.  https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/un#:~:text=Roosevelt%20met%20with%20Soviet%20Premier%20Joseph%20Stalin,committee%20to%20discuss%20social%20and%20economic%20issues.&text=Roosevelt%20agreed%20to%20General%20Assembly%20membership%20for,two%20more%20votes%20for%20the%20United%20States.

[6] Ibid.

[7] U.S. Department of State, “The Yalta Conference, 1945”. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/yalta-conf

[8] UN Charter, Chapter VI, Articles 33-38.

[9] “Operation Unthinkable”, The National Archives, UK. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/cold-war-on-file/operation-unthinkable/

[10] Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, “Decision to drop the Atomic Bomb”. https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/decision-drop-atomic-bomb

[11] UN Security Council, 23^rd meeting, 16 February 1946. Document S/PV.23. https://docs.un.org/en/S/PV.23

[12] Permanent Mission of India to the UN, New York. “Statement by Sir Ramaswamy Mudaliar, UN General Assembly 1^st Session, 18 January 1946. https://www.pminewyork.gov.in/pdf/uploadpdf/80686lms1.pdf

[13] “Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech – March 5, 1946”, Stephen Rogers et al., 5 March 2021, The National WWII Museum, New Orleans. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/winston-churchills-iron-curtain-speech-march-5-1946#:~:text=Then%2C%20on%20March%205%2C%201946,for%20the%20next%2050%20years.

[14] UN Security Council draft resolution S/1048 dated 22 October 1948. https://docs.un.org/en/S/1048

[15] U.S. Department of State, “North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1949”. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/nato

[16] NATO, “Germany and NATO”. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_185912.htm

[17] “NATO expansion: what Gorbachev heard”, National Security Archive, George Washington University. 12 December 2017. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

[18] An “emergency session” of the UNGA can be called by a vote of any seven members of the UNSC, or a majority of member-states of the UNGA.

[19] UN General Assembly Resolution 377 (A)/V, dated 3 November 1950. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/377%20(V)

[20] The eleven “emergency sessions” of the UNGA have been on the Middle East (1956), Hungary (1956), Middle East (1958), Congo (1960), Middle East (1967), Afghanistan (1980), Palestine (1980), Namibia (1981), occupied Arab territories (1982), Israeli actions in occupied Arab territories (1997) and Ukraine (2014).

[21] UN Security Council resolution 242 dated 22 November 1967. https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/default/files/document/files/2024/05/scres24228196729.pdf

[22] UN Security Council resolution 2202 dated 15 February 2015. https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/2202%20(2015)

[23] United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law, “Definition of Aggression”, 2008. https://legal.un.org/avl/pdf/ha/da/da_ph_e.pdf

[24] United Nations, “War’s greatest cost is its human toll”, UNSG Antonio Guterres, 30 March 2022. https://press.un.org/en/2022/sgsm21216.doc.htm

[25] United Nations Peacekeeping History. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/our-history

[26] India is the single largest troop contributing state to UN peacekeeping, having sent 290,000 troops in 50 UN peacekeeping missions so far, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, “India’s Legacy in UN peacekeeping”, 9 March 2025.

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2109587#:~:text=Introduction,conditions%20to%20promote%20international%20peace.

[27] United Nations Peacekeeping – how we are funded. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/how-we-are-funded

[28] United Nations, “Role of the General Assembly in UN Peacekeeping”. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/role-of-general-assembly#:~:text=The%20General%20Assembly%20monitors%20the,(Special%20Political%20and%20Decolonization).

[29] This includes MINUSMA, which was removed at the insistence of the host country Mali, and MONUSCO, which is being wound down in the DR of Congo. Currently, UNMISS in South Sudan is facing a crisis following the decision of the US to revoke all visas to South Sudanese nationals, and withdraw its component from the mission.

[30] UN Security Council resolution 1368 dated 12 September 2001. https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/1368(2001)

[31] United Nations Security Council resolutions relevant to terrorist actions. https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/ctc/content/security-council-resolutions

[32] UN Security Council, “Haqqani Network”. 5 November 2012. https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/sanctions/1988/materials/summaries/entity/haqqani-network

[33] UN Security Council resolution 2178 dated 24 September 2014. https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/2178%20(2014)

[34] United Nations Security Council Press Statement No. SC/16050 dated 25 April 2025. https://press.un.org/en/2025/sc16050.doc.htm

[35] UNGA resolution A/RES/60/288 dated 8 September 2006. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/60/288

[36] Statement in UNGA by leader of Indian Delegation Mrs Vijayalakshmi Pandit, 19 September 1947. https://www.pminewyork.gov.in/pdf/uploadpdf/64080lms2.pdf

[37] United Nations Charter: amendments to Articles 23, 27, 61, and 109. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/amendments

[38] UNGA, Document A/34/246 dated 14 November 1979. Reproduced in “Handbook on UNSC Reform”, page 43. https://pminewyork.gov.in/pdf/menu/pdf/L69InteractiveHandBook_11feb.pdf

[39] UNGA resolution A/RES/48/26 dated 3 December 1993. Reproduced in “Handbook on UNSC Reform”, page 46. https://pminewyork.gov.in/pdf/menu/pdf/L69InteractiveHandBook_11feb.pdf

[40] United Nations, “Declaration on the Right to Development”, UNGA resolution 41/128 dated 4 December 1986. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/rtd.pdf

[41] UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 3.1. https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf

[42] World Trade Organization, “Differential and More Favourable Treatment Reciprocity and Fuller Participation of Developing Countries”, 28 November 1979. https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/enabling_e.pdf

[43] United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/ 60/251 dated 3 April 2006. https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/a.res.60.251_en.pdf

[44] UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/60/1 dated 16 September 2005, paragraph 153. https://docs.un.org/en/A/Res/60/1

[45] UNGA Decision No. 62/557 dated 15 September 2008. Reproduced in “Handbook on UNSC Reform”, pages 148-149. https://pminewyork.gov.in/pdf/menu/pdf/L69InteractiveHandBook_11feb.pdf

[46] United Nations, Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development, 25 September 2015. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/70/1

[47] “The Benefits of Brexit”, UK Government, 2022, page 99.  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/620a791d8fa8f54915f4369e/benefits-of-brexit.pdf

[48] United States Mission to the UN, “Explanation of position on Pact for the Future”, paragraph 8. https://usun.usmission.gov/pact-for-the-future-global-digital-compact-and-declaration-on-future-generations-key-deliverables-and-u-s-explanation-of-position/

[49] Mukerji, Asoke. “Global Pact for the Future mired in ambivalence”, 20 September 2024, The Tribune. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/global-pact-for-the-future-mired-in-ambivalence/

[50] UN General Assembly resolution 992, dated 21 November 1955. Paragraph 1. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/992(X)