Staff Reports
When world leaders gather next week for the U.N. General Assembly's annual high-level week, one of the Biden administration's top priorities will be to reshape key U.N. institutions. Top officials want to modernise U.N. institutions so Russia and other dictatorships can't avoid accountability.
Along the way, the administration may unilaterally disarm American diplomats at the U.N.
U.S. U.N. ambassador. Linda Thomas-Greenfield previewed this push in a San Francisco speech:
We'll push for UNSC reform. This includes our co-sponsorship of the veto resolution, which asks permanent members to explain their vetoes. The Security Council should reflect global realities and include more diverse perspectives.
We shouldn't defend a flawed status quo. We must show flexibility and compromise for credibility and legitimacy. We should agree on credible proposals to expand the Security Council.
Russia's stonewalling at the Security Council seems to have inspired this effort. Russia has used its veto to shield Moscow from accountability for the Ukraine invasion and atrocities committed by Russian troops. After the Bucha mass killings were revealed, the Biden administration removed Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Thomas-speech Greenfield's suggests Washington wants a more fundamental solution to Russia's U.N. evasions.
Countering authoritarian regimes' malign influence at the U.N. would benefit the U.S., but it's difficult. Russia could veto Security Council reform. Given its veto power, Russia is unlikely to agree to any arrangement that would weaken Washington's ability to defend America's interests unilaterally at the U.N.
Securing new permanent Security Council members could boost U.S. influence at the U.N. Moscow and Beijing would likely need significant concessions to support such a push.
In April, the Biden administration fought Russian intransigence at the U.N. The U.S. supported a resolution that allows every U.N. member to weigh in on a Security Council veto within ten days. This process doesn't restrict Washington's ability to block damaging Security Council measures. 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 vague about upcoming reform consultations. Tellingly, they haven't specifically mentioned U.N. Human Rights Council and WHO reforms as part of this new campaign, despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken's pledges to make such reforms a priority.
Thomas-Greenfield said Biden and Blinken will discuss U.N. reform next week. For now, this initiative is in its early stages, but there are few signs that the U.S. will pursue shrewd, impactful, bare-knuckled diplomacy to sideline malign actors at the U.N.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on National Review.
