Deanndre You-Jieh Chen
Deanndre is a Research Assistant at the Global Summitry Project. She is currently pursuing a DPhil in International Relations on food sovereignty movements and International Relations theory at the University of Oxford. Deanndre holds a Master of Global Affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, an M.A. in International Relations and a B.A. in International Relations and Political Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Multilateralism in crisis? Beyond success and failure
Talk around the UN General Assembly in September, and the ongoing selection process for the new Secretary General concluding with the renewal on 1 January 2027, has been largely about multilateralism in crisis. Change is needed if the central institutions associated with multilateralism are to remain relevant. The question is what such changes might be. Identifying multilateral relevance requires a deeper understanding of where the problems appear to lie. One focus necessarily is on the UN system. For all the evident problems, it remains a primary expression of contemporary multilateralism.
Talk of reforming multilateralism dominates the visions of the Secretary-General hopefuls. The more obvious causes of the crisis of multilateralism have been discussed at length, and are the targets of the reforms that make up the UN80. These consist of reforming the organisation to be more responsive to rapidly changing global conditions, such as AI; acting decisively in conflict, and bringing together collective efforts to meet shared challenges. The initiative has shifted to different actors, such as the private sector or Middle Powers in regulation-setting or conflict negotiation, or changed scales, such as cities who lead in advancing sustainability. Informals, such as the G7 and G20, have emerged as central sites of geopolitics. These phenomena point to the declining role of the UN system and traditional multilateralism in global issues.
A New Secretary-General for the UN
The selection process for the UN Secretary General mirrors some of the central problems of the UN and its declining relevance. The current candidates must secure a majority vote from the UN Security Council and simultaneously avoid a veto from any of the Permanent Members of the Security Council. Criticisms of the veto powers are not new. However, calls for reforms to the UN Security Council and veto powers have amplified recent years because of how the veto has been used by Russia to prevent UN involvement in the war on Ukraine, and the US blocking calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza, which has been declared a genocide by the UN General Assembly, and has included attacks by Israel on UN agencies and relief efforts.
Buy-in from Great Powers dictate any actions from the UN, including who gets to be the representative of the organisations and its 194 Members. This creates an uneasy contradiction in the selection process of the Secretary General, as pointed out by analysts. On the one hand, Article 100 of the UN Charter states the following, ‘[i]n the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the Organization’. On the other hand, the selection process of the Secretary-General, selected by the tacit permission of the P5 through their non-use of the veto, can arguably constitute as an implicit instruction from particular governments. The contradiction, put simply by one analyst, is, ‘Candidates must consequently win over the same governments from which they will later be expected to keep their distance’.
Much of the analysis of the Secretary-General selection process has emphasised that a key priority for Guterres’s successor will be reasserting the UN in conflict negotiations and a dedication to preventing wars. The Secretary-General would also have to address the criticisms of the UN’s declining relevance in promoting broader development objectives at a time when it lacks significant financial capacity. Even though the Secretary-General is selected through a contradictory process that involves gaining votes from the P5 that it will later have to remain at a distance from, it has been demonstrated in the past that the office has a significant role to play in mediating tensions between Great Powers. For example, Dag Hammarskjöld facilitated negotiations between the US and China for the release of a US Airman who served under the command of the UN during the Korean War. U Thant is regarded as playing a key role in de-escalating tensions between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Analysts point out that the contradictory selection-process of the Secretary-General has been the case since the inception of the UN, and the world’s top diplomat has always had to discharge its duties at the same time as he managed the interests of Great Powers.
What is notable in more recent times is the persistence and use of veto powers by Great Powers as they are finding less relevance in the traditional multilateral forum. This can be seen by Trump’s new Board of Peace, or President Xi’s absence at the 2026 UN General Assembly. Great powers can simultaneously use the UN veto to advance their own interests, even as they search for alternatives to it. The result is a further paralysis of the UN to impose binding resolutions on its Members and act in moments of crisis. Secretary-General Guterres has warned that this creates an ‘environment of impunity’. Great Powers are not the only states exploring alternatives to the UN. Middle Powers have also considered alternative forums, and have increased their presence in informal groupings like the G20 and the BRICS, or established new forums, such as MIKTA.
There is some awareness of the problems on the part of the UN. The Summit of the Future and associated Pact for the Future, and the UN80 reforms point to attempts by the UN to address the lack of progress to achieving the sustainable development goals, on the one hand, and developing an institution fit for the future and the complexity of challenges. This suggests that the crisis of multilateralism is one of efficacy.
Other observers have argued that the current crisis of multilateralism is not new, and that the dynamics we see today have always been the nature of multilateralism; that the nature of international relations is contested multilateralism that consists of competing coalitions and shifting institutional (formal and informal) arrangements. In other words, this is part of the continuity of the dynamics of multilateralism. Part of the ongoing crisis of multilateralism is that states are just reluctant to surrender their sovereignty to an international authority.
The view held by many in the Global South, is that the international order and its associated agencies have always been problematic and on precarious ground. Even if multilateral institutions are independent from the Great Powers, their formation was considered empire by other means by some of its creators, given how they favour the interests of Great Powers and a Western-led Liberal International Order (LIO). Success stories aside, such as the Millenium Development Goals, the genesis of organisations like the UN ensures that power dynamics remain unequal and institutions still work to the benefit of specific Great Powers. The UN Security Council and its veto power demonstrates this. The UN is not the only case, as the inequalities in power can be seen in the Bretton Woods institutions of the IMF and World Bank, and in trade rules of the WTO.
This offers one explanation for the rise of informals like the G20, and perhaps the BRICS coalition. The traditional multilateral system does not represent the needs and interests of a large part of the world. From this point of view, the crisis of multilateralism is a crisis of legitimacy. Now that many of the states that make up that constituency have developed greater material capabilities alongside the declining US hegemony, the distribution of power has shifted, and emerging economies and Middle Powers have taken it upon themselves to carve out alternative spaces that are more representative of their interests. And the crisis signals a more profound change than just shifting power dynamics. For some, the current crisis may be an historical reckoning of sorts that touches on the unequal and precarious foundations upon which multilateralism was built at the end of the Cold War and had been held together until now. If this is the case, the latest UN reforms that target its liquidity problems and renewed commitments to achieving the SDGs, would fall short of achieving the change needed to address the underlying problems plaguing the UN.
The new Secretary-General will need to contend with this changing global order. However, they will do so with the knowledge that there is still an overall belief in the importance of the UN. Results from a 2026 report from Gallup shows that, although views differ significantly, the world holds an overall positive view on the work of the UN. Additionally, the activities of Middle Powers seem to suggest that there is vitality in multilateralism, as these Middle Powers rely on the existing institutions to support their diplomacy. Moreover, Middle Powers often make appeals to rules-based international order, suggesting that multilateralism holds legitimacy. It would also be inaccurate to maintain an undifferentiated view of the crisis or of multilateralism. The UN may be faltering on conflict negotiations, but elsewhere in its work it has made considerable progress on coordinating collective action. For example, Gavi partnered with UNICEF to accelerate the rollout of vaccines for malaria by decreasing its price, therefore making it more accessible. It is estimated to protect up to 7 million more children. Additionally, the decline of US-led multilateralism may offer some positives. One of the international order’s most powerful proponents of the status quo no longer has vested interests in maintaining its position, thus creating some room for change from other actors.