Reconstructing Collective Security Without Charter Amendment:

Functional Reconstruction Beyond Security Council Paralysis

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Abstract

In January 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared that 'impunity is the mother of chaos' and warned that the erosion of international law was 'unfolding before the eyes of the world'. This article takes that diagnosis seriously. The paralysis of the Security Council in the face of contemporary aggression and large-scale civilian harm is commonly treated as either an unfortunate political contingency or a fatal constitutional defect. Neither diagnosis is adequate. The failure is structural, but the path forward is not limited to Charter amendment or systemic rupture. Drawing on doctrine concerning good faith, abuse of rights, and the practice of UN organs under conditions of institutional dysfunction, this article develops a framework of 'functional reconstruction': a conservative reallocation of authority within the existing Charter order that preserves legal continuity while enabling collective security to operate when the Council cannot. It advances three mutually reinforcing moves: (i) re-anchoring certain collective security functions in the General Assembly through both derived and residual authority; (ii) giving practical effect to collective determinations via treaty-based enforcement coalitions; and (iii) articulating a legally cognisable account of veto abuse that carries consequences – not by invalidating the veto, but by diminishing the claim of exclusivity that Security Council paralysis otherwise implies. The article concludes that managed pluralism anchored in representative processes is preferable to constitutionalised impunity.

I. Introduction: Collective Security and the Politics of Marginalisation

The contemporary crisis of collective security is frequently narrated as a problem of institutional design, geopolitical rivalry, or the legal constraints imposed by the United Nations Charter.[1] Each of these factors matters. Yet none fully explains why paralysis in the Security Council has become normalized, and in some cases treated as dispositive of what international law can demand. A deeper driver is political rather than textual: the sustained marginalisation of the United Nations by the very states and leaders most responsible for its effectiveness. The erosion of the UN’s authority has not occurred solely through formal gridlock within the Security Council, but through a long pattern of rhetorical dismissal, selective engagement, and instrumentalised adherence by powerful states.

In January 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres offered a stark diagnosis. In his final annual address to the General Assembly, he declared: ‘The context is chaos. We are a world brimming with conflict, impunity, inequality and unpredictability.’[2] He warned that ‘the erosion of international law is not happening in the shadows’ but ‘unfolding before the eyes of the world, on our screens, live in 4K.’[3] Most striking was his identification of impunity as causal: ‘Impunity is the mother of chaos - and it has spawned some of the most atrocious conflicts of our times.’[4] This institutional testimony, delivered at the end of a decade-long tenure, confirms what structural analysis suggests: the crisis is not peripheral but systemic, and silence in the face of violation breeds further violation.

This dynamic has occasionally been acknowledged by political leaders themselves. In a 2006 address at the Royal Albert Hall in London, President Bill Clinton invited his audience to guess what the biggest mistake was he had made as President. After a pause - and the knowing laughter it elicited - he added: ‘No, not that one. The other one.’ His answer, once the audience had recovered, was surprising - the continuation of a prevailing United States posture treated the United Nations as dysfunctional or dispensable, and therefore further marginalizing it.[5] The observation was striking precisely because it came from a former leader of the state most capable of either sustaining or undermining the institution.

Clinton’s candour finds echoes elsewhere. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in his memoir Unvanquished, offered a blunt assessment of United States policy toward the UN, arguing that Washington had treated the organization as an extension of its own foreign policy while condemning it to the status of scapegoat when convenient.[6] His successor, Kofi Annan, similarly emphasized in his memoir Interventions that the greatest failures of the UN during his tenure - Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq - were attributable not to institutional incapacity but to the unwillingness of powerful member states to commit the necessary resources and political will.[7] Angela Merkel, throughout her tenure as German Chancellor, repeatedly warned that abandoning multilateralism in favour of unilateral action would lead to catastrophe, insisting that international institutions must be reformed rather than marginalized.[8]

The doctrinal significance of these observations lies not in their personal candour, nor in any claim of authoritative interpretation of the Charter, but in their recognition that marginalisation is causal. Scepticism and sidelining by leading states is not merely a response to UN weakness; it is a contributor to it. When the principal architects and beneficiaries of the Charter system present the UN as optional, the institution loses the practical capacity to function as the centre of collective security.

Marginalisation operates through familiar mechanisms. The UN is routinely, and conveniently, portrayed in political discourse as inefficient, partisan, or structurally irredeemable, while meaningful reform is resisted and institutional processes are bypassed when inconvenient. Engagement becomes instrumental: the institution is embraced when it legitimates preferred outcomes and ignored when it constrains them. The result is a self-reinforcing cycle. Institutional weakness is invoked to justify disengagement; disengagement deepens weakness; weakness then becomes the rationale for further marginalisation. Security Council veto paralysis is the most visible symptom of this cycle, but it is not the only one.

Operational legitimacy failures have compounded the problem. Allegations of misconduct by UN personnel in the field, uneven accountability, and persistent gaps between the rule-of-law standards urged upon states and those applied internally have all damaged institutional credibility.[9] These failures are real and corrosive. Yet institutions can recover from scandal. They recover less easily from systematic delegitimation by those states with the greatest capacity to sustain them. The more powerful the state, the greater the effect of its disengagement on the institution’s authority.

This article does not argue for institutional pluralism at the level of global governance. At the level of collective security, the international system does not benefit from multiple competing bodies each claiming comprehensive authority over peace, security, and legitimacy. It benefits only from having one such body - representative, authoritative, and capable of functioning. Fragmentation at that level would not mitigate power politics; it would multiply it. If a universal institution did not already exist, it would need to be invented. When aliens arrive, we need to be able to produce some person or body to talk to them on behalf of Earth - some singular institutional voice capable of claiming representational authority.[10] The question addressed here is therefore not whether the United Nations should occupy that role, but whether it can continue to do so credibly in its current internal configuration.

Contemporary reform proposals often focus on formal Charter amendment, particularly with respect to the veto.[11] Others imply, more darkly, that only systemic rupture - historically associated with major war - can generate the political conditions necessary for meaningful institutional reconstruction.[12] Both positions rest on flawed premises. Charter amendment is politically foreclosed by design. Catastrophic rupture is neither legally required nor morally defensible as a strategy for reform.

The prospect of dissolving the United Nations and negotiating a replacement Charter is nil. No plausible political scenario exists in which the current membership - divided by ideology, interest, and capacity - would converge on a new constitutional settlement for global security. The historical conditions that made the original Charter possible cannot be replicated; they were the product of catastrophic war, temporary great-power alignment, and a shared determination never to repeat the failures of the League. Waiting for such conditions to recur is not a reform strategy. It is an abdication.

This article advances a different prospect. Meaningful reconstruction of collective security is possible without Charter amendment and without systemic rupture, through a process of functional reconstruction grounded in existing doctrine and institutional practice. Rather than rewriting or abandoning the Charter, this approach reallocates authority within the existing legal framework in response to persistent institutional failure.

The argument moves from the General Assembly’s latent constitutional authority under conditions of Council paralysis, through the practical mechanics of treaty-based enforcement coalitions, to the consequences - short of invalidity - that attach to abusive veto use. Each element reinforces the others: Assembly determinations supply legitimacy; coalitions supply effect; and the doctrine of veto abuse supplies the justification for treating Council paralysis as something other than dispositive.

This article does not engage directly with the Responsibility to Protect framework. R2P addresses the substantive question of when international response to mass atrocities is justified; the present analysis addresses the prior institutional question of how collective security can function when the Security Council is blocked. The two inquiries are related but distinct. The moral premise underlying R2P - that the international community bears a collective responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, and that sovereignty cannot serve as a shield for mass atrocity – is sound. If such a responsibility exists, it should be discharged through the United Nations as the only globally representative institution capable of conferring legitimacy on collective action. Yet R2P’s third pillar – concerning international enforcement – remains politically contested and is perceived by much of the Global South as partisan following its invocation in Libya in 2011. That perception is not merely a public relations problem; it reflects R2P’s dependence on a Security Council vulnerable to the same veto paralysis that afflicts collective security more broadly.

Functional reconstruction addresses that structural vulnerability. It does not depend on R2P's normative premises, nor does it claim authority for forcible intervention outside the Charter framework. Its ambitions are more modest: to preserve the system's capacity for collective judgment and coordinated non-forcible response when the primary organ cannot act. Whether this institutional capacity would strengthen R2P's implementation is a question the present article does not attempt to resolve; what it does suggest is that the procedural and institutional deficits that have hampered R2P are precisely those that functional reconstruction seeks to address.

The purpose of the analysis is neither to idealise the United Nations nor to excuse its failures. It is to reject the proposition - implicit in much contemporary discourse - that institutional dysfunction justifies abandonment, exceptionalism, or resignation. The UN remains the only comprehensive, globally representative framework for collective security. Its marginalisation by powerful states is therefore not a neutral political preference but a central cause of systemic fragility. The task is not to wait for catastrophe or consensus, but to use the law and institutions that exist to restore functional credibility to collective security.

II. The Charter Design and Its Limits

The United Nations Charter was drafted on the assumption that a single, universal institution could provide a stable framework for the maintenance of international peace and security. That assumption remains sound. What has come into question is not the necessity of a central global institution, but the adequacy of the specific allocation of authority embedded in the Charter’s post-1945 design.

The Security Council was constructed as the executive core of the system.[13] Its composition and voting rules reflected an inevitable political compromise forged in the aftermath of the Second World War, premised on the belief that durable collective security required the consent and participation of the major military powers.[14] The veto was the price of that consent. Its logic was functional rather than juridical: it was intended to prevent enforcement action likely to provoke great-power war, not to guarantee consistent accountability for violations of international law.[15]

That design presupposed conditions that no longer obtain. Contemporary conflict is characterised by proxy warfare, blurred lines of responsibility, and routine involvement - direct or indirect - of permanent members in conflicts they may later be called upon to judge. The assumption that veto-wielding states would ordinarily be detached arbiters has eroded. At the same time, substantive norms governing the use of force and the protection of civilians are more developed and more widely internalised than in 1945.[16] Civilian harm is visible in real time, increasing demands for accountability and collective response. When the principal institution charged with collective security cannot even register authoritative judgment in the most serious cases, the legal order appears less like a system of law than a system of discretion.

The Charter does not treat the Security Council as the sole embodiment of collective security authority. Article 24 confers primary responsibility, not exclusivity.[17] The General Assembly retains broad competences in relation to discussion, recommendation, and coordination, including with respect to threats to peace and international cooperation.[18] This dual structure reflects an implicit recognition that concentration of authority entails risks of deadlock as well as efficiency. The difficulty is that the Charter provides no explicit mechanism for reallocating authority when the Council is persistently unable to act. That silence marks the design limit within which any reconstruction must operate.

Understanding this design limit is essential. It explains why purely internal procedural adjustments within the Security Council are unlikely to resolve the crisis. The veto’s structure converts disagreement among permanent members into paralysis, regardless of the gravity of the underlying situation. It also suggests that reform must focus not on rewriting the Charter, but on how authority may be exercised lawfully and legitimately within the existing framework when the primary organ cannot act.

III. Why Formal Charter Amendment Is Not a Viable Path

Proposals to reform the veto invariably confront the Charter’s amendment architecture. Articles 108 and 109 permit amendment and review only with the ratification of all permanent members of the Security Council.[19] Any amendment that would meaningfully constrain the veto - whether by limiting its scope, suspending it in atrocity situations, or abolishing it altogether - therefore requires the consent of the states most invested in its preservation. This is not a procedural inconvenience; it is a structural lock-in, and - without amendment - potentially fatal.

Article 109’s review conference mechanism does not alter this reality. Even if a review conference were convened, any proposed amendments would still require ratification under Article 108.[20] The Charter was deliberately designed to resist constitutional re-engineering without great-power consent. This design choice reflected the historical lesson of the League of Nations: that collective security without major-power buy-in was unlikely to endure.[21] But it has proved fatal.

Recognising this entrenchment is not an expression of cynicism. It is a necessary analytic step. Reform discourse that focuses on textual amendment misdiagnoses the problem and risks becoming performative - rehearsing proposals that cannot be implemented while institutional dysfunction deepens. It also reinforces a false dilemma that dominates contemporary debate: that collective security must either remain frozen in its current form or be reborn through systemic rupture. Neither conclusion follows from the Charter’s amendment rules.

The same is true of voluntary restraint initiatives. France and Mexico have proposed that permanent members collectively pledge not to use the veto in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, and large-scale war crimes.[22] Of the permanent members, only the United Kingdom has expressed support. Voluntary approaches face the same structural obstacle as formal amendment: they require the consent of states invested in preserving the power they are asked to restrain.

Comparative constitutional experience confirms that deeply entrenched power allocations rarely change through formal amendment absent extraordinary political alignment or existential shock.[23] Domestic constitutional systems frequently adapt through interpretation, practice, and shifts in institutional balance long before formal amendment occurs. The UN Charter, as a quasi-constitutional instrument of the international community, is no different.[24] Indeed, it is more entrenched than most domestic constitutions, because the beneficiaries of the veto possess both procedural blocking power and substantial geopolitical leverage.

If formal amendment is foreclosed, the relevant question is not whether reform is possible, but how authority may be exercised lawfully and legitimately within, or alongside, the Charter’s framework when the Security Council is unable to act. That question is doctrinal rather than revolutionary. It concerns interpretation, institutional practice, good faith, and legitimacy - not constitutional replacement; but it may be globally decisive. As Guterres observed, ‘1945 problem-solving will not solve 2026 problems.’[25] The structures must adapt or lose legitimacy.

IV. Functional Reconstruction as Doctrine

Functional reconstruction provides a framework for addressing institutional paralysis without constitutional rupture. It describes a process by which authority migrates within an existing legal order in response to persistent dysfunction, while the formal constitutional text remains intact. It is conservative in form but adaptive in effect, and practicable without systemic upheaval.

A. Functional Reconstruction and Constitutional Practice

Functional reconstruction is familiar in domestic constitutional systems. Formal amendment is often rare and difficult; constitutional change frequently occurs through interpretive practice, institutional evolution, and shifts in power relations among branches.[26] Courts develop doctrines that preserve systemic purpose where textual rules prove inadequate. Legislatures adapt procedures to new realities. Executive powers evolve through contestation and practice. The constitutional order remains formally continuous.

One has to accept that - similarly - international institutions exhibit analogous dynamics, though in more complex form. They depend heavily on practice, consent, and legitimacy, and their competences are often framed in general terms that require interpretation.[27] Where an organ persistently fails to perform its assigned role, authority does not vanish; it is necessarily exercised elsewhere, sometimes by organs originally conceived as supplementary. This is not constitutional mutation by stealth, but institutional survival.

The principle may be stated as follows: where a constitutional mechanism designed to serve a systemic purpose persistently fails to do so, authority migrates to alternative mechanisms capable of fulfilling that purpose, without formal amendment to the constitutional text. The migration is neither automatic nor unlimited; it is constrained by the structure and purposes of the constitutional order. But it is lawful, and it is familiar.

The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 provide a particularly instructive example. When the House of Lords persistently blocked legislation supported by the elected House of Commons – most dramatically, the Liberal government's ‘People's Budget’ of 1909 – the constitutional response was not to abolish the upper chamber but to circumscribe its veto. Legislation could thereafter pass without Lords' consent after specified delays. Formal bicameralism was preserved; functional authority migrated to the representative body. The Lords retained their role where they could act constructively; they lost their capacity to paralyse the system when they could not.[28]

The development of European Union constitutional law illustrates the same dynamic in a quasi-international setting. The doctrines of supremacy of EU law and direct effect – foundational to the Union's legal order – were not explicit in the founding treaties. They were developed by the European Court of Justice in Van Gend en Loos (1963) and Costa v ENEL (1964) and consolidated through subsequent state practice and acquiescence. No treaty amendment authorised this transformation. It emerged through the gradual acceptance of judicial pronouncements as consistent with the treaties' purposes, and it is now uncontested as a matter of EU constitutional law.[29]

The international analogue is not precise. No superior legislature exists to enact a Parliament Act for the United Nations; no court possesses the European Court of Justice's combination of compulsory jurisdiction and institutional embeddedness. But the structural logic is the same: where a blocking mechanism frustrates systemic purpose, authority may shift to institutions capable of acting, provided the shift remains within the bounds of the constitutional framework and consistent with its animating purposes.

Functional reconstruction is not a revival of Uniting for Peace as an episodic workaround. It is an account of how authority migrates across institutions over time when primary organs become structurally incapable of acting - a constitutional phenomenon rather than a procedural device.

B. The Limits of Constitutional Analogy

It must be admitted that the analogy to domestic constitutional practice illuminates but does not replicate. In domestic systems, functional reallocation occurs against a background of settled authority, established enforcement mechanisms, and an accepted locus of constitutional finality – typically a supreme or constitutional court capable of authoritatively resolving disputes about the distribution of competences. At the international level, those background conditions are precisely what is in question. There is no institution capable of declaring, with binding effect, that authority has migrated from one organ to another. The International Court of Justice may offer advisory opinions, but it cannot compel compliance or settle constitutional controversies in the manner of a domestic apex court.[30] The objection, therefore, is that functional reconstruction assumes what it needs to demonstrate: that authority can migrate in a system that lacks the apparatus for recognising and legitimating such migration.

This objection has force, but it does not defeat the argument. It requires, instead, a more precise account of how functional reconstruction operates at the international level. The answer lies in accumulated practice rather than authoritative declaration. International institutional law has always developed through the gradual consolidation of patterns that shift the normative weight accorded to different organs, without formal constitutional adjudication and often without explicit textual warrant. The doctrine of implied powers, the expansion of peacekeeping beyond anything contemplated in 1945, the evolution of human rights monitoring mechanisms – none of these rested on constitutional amendment or judicial determination.[31] Each emerged through practice that states came to accept, or at least acquiesce in, as consistent with the Charter's purposes.

Functional reconstruction operates in the same register. It does not require a tribunal to declare that authority has shifted from the Security Council to the General Assembly. It requires, rather, that states and institutions act on the premise that such a shift is lawful, and that this practice consolidates over time into a recognised constitutional pattern. The process is less tidy than domestic constitutional adaptation. It depends on political will, normative entrepreneurship, and the willingness of states to treat certain practices as authoritative even without compulsory adjudication. But this is how international law has always worked. To demand domestic-style finality as a precondition for constitutional evolution is to impose a standard that international law has never met and that would render all institutional adaptation suspect.

The argument advanced here is therefore not that functional reconstruction replicates domestic constitutional dynamics, but that it represents the international analogue – adapted to a system that lacks centralised enforcement and constitutional finality, yet remains capable of normative evolution through practice. The domestic comparison is heuristic rather than determinative. It suggests what to look for; it does not supply the mechanism.

C. Functional Reconstruction in International Organizations

Within the UN system, the Charter establishes a differentiated allocation of authority rather than a rigid hierarchy. The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, but the General Assembly possesses broad competences in relation to discussion, recommendation, and coordination.[32] The Charter’s architecture thus contains latent capacities that become salient when the primary mechanism is blocked.

Functional reconstruction does not imply that institutional competences expand without limit. It operates within the boundaries of the Charter framework. What changes is not the formal scope of authority, but the practical weight accorded to different organs as conditions evolve. When the Security Council is persistently unable to act, the Assembly’s competences assume greater constitutional significance - not because the Charter has changed, but because the system must remain capable of functioning.

D. Authority, Legitimacy, and Functionality

A central feature of functional reconstruction is that authority follows functionality. Institutions derive legitimacy not only from formal competence, but from their capacity to perform assigned tasks.[33] Where an institution persistently fails, its formal authority may remain intact, but its practical authority diminishes. Conversely, institutions that act effectively within legal constraints may acquire enhanced legitimacy.

In international law, where centralized enforcement is absent, legitimacy and authority are inseparable from functionality.[34] Compliance depends not only on rules, but on acceptance of institutions as authoritative. When an institution repeatedly proves incapable of responding to serious challenges, the prescriptive force of its inaction erodes.

This dynamic is particularly acute in collective security. The prohibition of aggression and the rules of international humanitarian law do not depend on Security Council enforcement for their existence.[35] But enforcement deficits undermine the credibility of the system as a whole. Functional reconstruction seeks to address that deficit by enabling other lawful mechanisms to operate where the primary mechanism is blocked.

E. Continuity, Singularity, and the Conservative Logic of Reconstruction

Functional reconstruction must be distinguished from constitutional rupture. It does not entail abandonment of the Charter, dissolution of the UN, or creation of a competing global institution - that way lies chaos and potentially decades of renegotiation. Nor does it imply that institutional failure automatically generates new legal authority. Rather, it posits that existing legal frameworks may contain underutilised capacities that can be activated lawfully when primary mechanisms fail, and that consistent practice can consolidate those capacities into recognized constitutional patterns.[36] Constitutional rupture implies discontinuity, uncertainty, and the loss of normative constraint. Functional reconstruction aims to preserve continuity while restoring capacity.

This presupposes institutional singularity at the global level. The legitimacy of collective security depends not on proliferating rival claimants to authority, but on preserving a single representative framework within which authority can shift without fracturing the system itself. If Security Council paralysis produces a vacuum, that vacuum should not be filled by a rival ‘UN’, but by lawful rebalancing inside the existing Charter order. Fragmentation may occur in practice, but it is not a solution.[37] A system of multiple competing global security bodies would not constrain power politics; it would multiply it. This much is clear.

Functional reconstruction is therefore conservative in character. It accepts the permanence of the veto. It does not deny the Security Council’s central role where it can function. It rejects only the proposition that veto-induced paralysis must define the limits of what collective security may achieve. In this sense, functional reconstruction is less a reform programme than a constitutional clarification - an articulation of how authority can migrate within an existing legal order in response to persistent dysfunction, without rewriting the constitutional text or abandoning the institutional framework that gives international law its structure.

V. Re-Anchoring Collective Security in the General Assembly

Functional reconstruction begins with the General Assembly. Re-anchoring certain collective-security functions in the General Assembly does not entail a claim that the Assembly may substitute itself for the Security Council, nor that it acquires enforcement competences analogous to those contemplated by Chapter VII. The claim advanced here is narrower and constitutional rather than executive: where the Security Council is persistently unable to discharge its primary responsibility owing to veto-induced paralysis, the General Assembly may exercise both derived and residual authority sufficient to sustain collective judgment, coordination, and legitimacy for responses short of force. This proposition follows from the Charter’s structure, from sustained institutional practice under conditions of stress, and from the logic of necessity within a constitutional order designed to endure political fracture.

A. Primary Responsibility and the Significance of Non-Exclusivity

Article 24 of the Charter confers primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security upon the Security Council.[38] The deliberate choice of ‘primary’ rather than ‘exclusive’ responsibility is not incidental.[39] The Charter simultaneously vests the General Assembly with broad competences to discuss any matters within the scope of the Charter, to make recommendations to states, and to coordinate collective responses in pursuit of the organization’s purposes.[40] The resulting constitutional structure is not one of rigid hierarchy but of differentiated authority, calibrated to balance decisiveness with resilience.

In ordinary circumstances, the Security Council’s centrality dominates the system’s operation. In extraordinary circumstances - specifically, where the Council is rendered persistently non-functional by veto obstruction - the constitutional significance of non-exclusivity becomes critical. An institution of this importance cannot be permitted to fail by design. Treating Council inaction as legally conclusive in all circumstances would invert the Charter’s logic, transforming a stabilizing device into a mechanism of constitutionalised dormancy. Nothing in the Charter’s text compels such an interpretation. On the contrary, the Charter’s architecture presupposes that institutional authority may be exercised across organs in pursuit of its purposes when the primary mechanism fails. But it is failing.

B. Uniting for Peace as Constitutional Practice Under Stress

Uniting for Peace is a procedural mechanism established by General Assembly Resolution 377(V) in 1950.[41] It permits the Assembly to meet in emergency special session within twenty-four hours when the Security Council, owing to lack of unanimity among its permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

The Uniting for Peace procedure provides the clearest illustration of how the Charter system responds to Security Council paralysis without constitutional rupture. Developed in response to repeated vetoes during the early Cold War, it enabled the General Assembly to convene emergency special sessions and to issue collective recommendations when the Council failed to act.[42]

Formally, Uniting for Peace did not alter the legal status of General Assembly resolutions. They remained non-binding. Constitutionally, however, the practice performed a critical function: it preserved the organization’s capacity to articulate authoritative collective judgment in circumstances where the Council could not. That function has proven durable across decades, ideological shifts, and changing geopolitical alignments. Its persistence, acceptance, and repeated invocation are themselves legally significant.[43]

The early Uniting for Peace episodes - most notably Korea and Suez - are often treated as sui generis Cold War artefacts.[44] That characterization understates their constitutional importance. In both cases, the Assembly acted precisely because permanent-member interests rendered the Council incapable of responding. The Assembly did not purport to authorise enforcement action; it sustained collective judgment, coordinated international response, and preserved institutional relevance at moments of acute stress.

More recent practice confirms that Uniting for Peace is not a historical relic but an adaptive constitutional mechanism. Its invocation in relation to contemporary conflicts - including where a permanent member is directly involved or strategically invested - reflects a continued institutional understanding that Council paralysis cannot exhaust the UN's collective-security function.[45] The legitimacy of the practice has survived sustained controversy precisely because it does not claim executive authority. It operates as a constitutional safety valve, not an alternative Security Council. It is a keystone of functional reconstruction.

C. Advisory Opinions and the Constitutional Position of the Assembly

The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinions reinforce this understanding of the General Assembly’s constitutional role. In Certain Expenses of the United Nations, the Court rejected a narrow reading of the Assembly’s peace-and-security functions, emphasising that the Charter establishes a system of shared responsibility among organs acting within their respective competences.[46] The Court declined to treat Security Council involvement as a necessary condition for institutional action, underscoring instead the functional unity of the organization.

Similarly, in the Namibia advisory opinion, the Court recognized the constitutional and legal significance of General Assembly determinations adopted in response to Security Council paralysis.[47] While careful to preserve the formal distinction between binding and non-binding acts, the Court acknowledged that Assembly resolutions could generate meaningful legal effects when adopted within the framework of the Charter’s purposes.

Equally important is what these opinions do not say. They do not confer enforcement authority on the General Assembly. They do not license the Assembly to displace the Security Council’s executive role. They do, however, reject interpretations of the Charter that would render the Assembly inert whenever the Council is blocked. The Court’s approach is constitutional rather than formalistic: it treats institutional competence as functional, purposive, and responsive to systemic need.

D. Residual Authority, Necessity, and the Rejection of Total Dormancy

Beyond derived authority lies a more contested but constitutionally unavoidable concept: residual authority. Residual authority arises where persistent Security Council failure would otherwise extinguish collective response altogether. It is grounded not in institutional ambition but in the established general principle of necessity in international law.[48]

Where a permanent member employs the veto to prevent action in circumstances in which it has a direct interest - whether as a party to the conflict, a strategic patron, or a guarantor of impunity - Council inaction cannot plausibly be characterised as an authoritative institutional determination that no response is warranted. It is the product of fundamental structural obstruction. To treat such inaction as conclusive would risk converting the veto into a mechanism of constitutionalised impunity - the very condition that, as noted, Secretary-General Guterres identified as 'the mother of chaos’.

Residual authority does not license unlimited Assembly action. It operates within strict constraints. It presupposes sustained Council incapacity rather than episodic disagreement; credible evidence that paralysis is attributable to veto obstruction rather than genuine uncertainty; and the presence of serious threats to peace or large-scale harm falling squarely within the Charter’s purposes. Where these conditions are met, residual authority functions as a constitutional safeguard against institutional silence, not as a claim of supremacy over the Security Council.

These criteria require operationalization. ‘Sustained incapacity’ should be understood to require a pattern of obstruction across multiple attempts to address the situation — not a single failed resolution, but repeated vetoes over an extended period in circumstances where the factual predicate for action is clear. The Syrian conflict, where Russia cast sixteen vetoes between 2011 and 2023 on resolutions addressing humanitarian access, chemical weapons use, and civilian protection, epitomises this threshold.[49] ‘Credible evidence of veto obstruction’ turns on whether the vetoing state is directly interested - as a party, patron, or ally - rather than acting as a detached arbiter weighing escalation risks.

‘Serious threats to peace or large-scale harm’ encompasses situations involving mass atrocities, aggression, or systematic violations of international humanitarian law, as distinct from ordinary political disputes or matters of primarily domestic concern. These thresholds are demanding precisely because residual authority is exceptional; they are not, however, so indeterminate as to be judicially or politically unworkable. On any conservative assessment of the last four decades, it has reached this point.

These thresholds are not self-applying, and functional reconstruction does not pretend otherwise. The determination that they have been met emerges through political processes rather than judicial pronouncement. This is a feature of the framework, not a defect. International law routinely operates through decentralised assessment: states determine for themselves whether the conditions for countermeasures are satisfied, whether treaties have been materially breached, whether circumstances precluding wrongfulness obtain. The absence of compulsory adjudication does not render these determinations lawless; it subjects them to the discipline of justification, contestation, and reputational consequence.

The same is true here. States invoking functional reconstruction must articulate why the threshold criteria are met. Their assessments are subject to challenge by other states, scrutiny in the General Assembly, and evaluation by scholars and tribunals in subsequent proceedings. The Secretary-General's reporting functions under Article 99 provide an institutional mechanism for independent factual assessment, even if the Secretary-General cannot authoritatively resolve the legal question. Over time, consistent practice will generate precedents that discipline future invocations – just as the law of countermeasures has developed through accumulating state practice rather than centralised adjudication.

E. Representational Legitimacy and the Weight of Collective Judgment

The General Assembly’s role under conditions of Council paralysis is reinforced by its representational legitimacy. As the only universally representative organ of the United Nations, it embodies the principle of sovereign equality more fully than any other institutional component.[50] That inclusiveness does not transform recommendations into binding obligations, but it does confer authority as a forum of collective judgment.

In international law, legitimacy is not merely expressive. It structures expectations, coordinates behaviour, and shapes compliance.[51] Where the Security Council’s legitimacy is compromised by self-interested veto use, Assembly determinations may carry enhanced authoritative weight. They provide reference points for subsequent state practice, including coordinated measures taken outside the Council’s formal machinery.

At the same time, the Assembly’s limitations must be stated with precision. It cannot authorise the use of force in the manner envisaged by Chapter VII. It cannot impose binding sanctions. It does not become an alternative executive. Its role within functional reconstruction is constitutional rather than coercive: to sustain the system’s capacity to judge, to coordinate, and to legitimate collective action short of force when the primary organ is blocked.

The General Assembly is not, however, immune to dysfunction. Bloc voting, performative resolutions adopted without serious implementation intent, and selective mobilisation shaped by regional or ideological alignments are familiar features of Assembly practice.[52] Resolutions condemning some situations while ignoring comparable ones elsewhere, the inflation of rhetorical demands untethered from operational reality, and the tendency toward lowest-common-denominator formulations that secure consensus at the cost of precision – these pathologies are real, and any framework that accords the Assembly enhanced constitutional significance must reckon with them. To argue for a re-anchoring of collective security functions in the General Assembly is not to claim that the Assembly is a model deliberative body. It is to argue that, even with its deficiencies, it offers something the paralysed Security Council cannot: the capacity for collective judgment.

The relevant comparison is not between a perfect institution and an imperfect one. It is between two forms of imperfection. Security Council paralysis represents concentrated dysfunction: the veto forecloses collective judgment entirely, rendering the institution mute in precisely the circumstances where authoritative speech is most needed. General Assembly dysfunction is diffuse: it may produce uneven, inconsistent, or inadequately implemented judgments, but it preserves the system's capacity to deliberate, to articulate normative positions, and to provide a reference point for coordinated action. Concentrated dysfunction extinguishes response; diffuse dysfunction permits it, however imperfectly.

This is a modest claim, but it is the right one. Functional reconstruction does not rest on the proposition that General Assembly determinations are superior in quality to Security Council decisions, nor that the Assembly's representative character guarantees wise outcomes. It rests on the proposition that imperfect collective judgment is preferable to constitutionalised silence – and that a system capable of speaking, even imperfectly, retains normative traction that a silent system lacks.

A recurrent objection is that re-anchoring collective security functions in the General Assembly merely substitutes one form of dysfunction for another: veto paralysis for politicised deliberation. That objection rests on a false equivalence. The relevant comparison is not between technocratic neutrality and political contestation, but between structured collective judgment and constitutionalised silence. Security Council paralysis extinguishes institutional speech altogether; General Assembly deliberation, however imperfect, preserves the system’s capacity to articulate positions, coordinate responses, and generate normative reference points. In a constitutional order designed to endure political disagreement, the ability to speak imperfectly is preferable to enforced muteness.

VI. Treaty-Based Enforcement Coalitions

General Assembly determinations mitigate Security Council paralysis only if they connect to practical consequences. Treaty-based enforcement coalitions provide a lawful mechanism for doing so without breaching the Charter or dissolving the UN framework.

A. Legal Basis for Collective Measures Short of Force

Irrespective of association with the UN, states retain the capacity to enter into treaties providing for coordinated responses to breaches of international norms.[53] Such treaties may authorise sanctions, asset freezes, restrictions on financial transactions, arms embargoes, and maritime interdiction measures short of force. Provided that these measures remain consistent with general international law, they do not require Security Council authorisation.

This decentralized enforcement capacity coexists with the Charter system. The Charter centralizes authorisation of force, not all forms of collective response.[54] The tendency to treat Security Council inaction as legally dispositive across all coercive domains collapses this distinction and grants the veto a scope far beyond its textual or functional justification.

The legality of coordinated measures taken by non-injured states in response to serious breaches of peremptory norms remains the subject of doctrinal debate, particularly in relation to third-party countermeasures under the Articles on State Responsibility. Nothing in the present argument depends on resolving that debate conclusively. The framework advanced here rests instead on two narrower and more secure propositions: first, that the Charter does not centralise all non-forcible collective responses in the Security Council; and secondly, that treaty-based coordination of restrictive measures, when explicitly anchored to General Assembly determinations, occupies a different constitutional position from unilateral coercion.

B. Assembly Linkage and Enhanced Legitimacy

Treaty-based enforcement coalitions acquire enhanced legitimacy when anchored to General Assembly determinations. While Assembly resolutions are not binding, they can supply authoritative predicates: a broadly representative organ determines that a situation constitutes a threat to peace, involves serious violations, or amounts to aggression. States acting collectively pursuant to treaty commitments can then characterize their measures as part of an international response rather than unilateral coercion.[55]

This linkage does important work. It embeds enforcement measures within a representative process, mitigating the charge that they merely reflect the interests of powerful states. It also reinforces the UN’s normative centrality, even as enforcement occurs outside the Security Council’s formal machinery.

C. Managing Selectivity and Fragmentation

No enforcement model eliminates selectivity. Security Council centralization does not ensure equal treatment; it entrenches selectivity through the veto. Treaty-based coalitions reflect power realities, but they need not operate arbitrarily. When structured through treaty commitments and tethered to Assembly determinations, they are more transparent and more constrained than unilateral action. They are not perfect. But they are better than paralysis.

Concerns about fragmentation must be taken seriously.[56] Enforcement coalitions risk becoming detached power clubs if they operate without institutional anchoring. The approach advanced here seeks the opposite: to preserve the UN framework as the normative reference point while enabling practical consequences when the Council is blocked. Coalitions should therefore present their measures as complementary to, rather than substitutive of, the UN system.

D. Functional Complementarity Rather Than Substitution

Treaty-based enforcement coalitions do not replace the Security Council. They operate in the spaces the Council cannot reach, particularly in the domain of non-forcible measures. Their legitimacy depends on restraint and transparency, and on continued reference to the Charter’s purposes.

This model does not promise perfect enforcement. It offers something more realistic: a structured alternative to paralysis that preserves institutional continuity. The alternative - treating Council paralysis as dispositive - constitutionalises inaction and rewards obstruction. Functional reconstruction accepts imperfection in order to preserve capacity.

E. Contemporary Practice: The Russia Sanctions Regime

The coordinated international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 provides the most significant contemporary illustration of treaty-based enforcement coalitions operating in parallel with - rather than against - the UN framework.[57] When Russia’s permanent member status rendered Security Council action impossible, a coalition of more than forty states, coordinated primarily through the G7 and European Union, imposed unprecedented restrictive measures without UN authorisation.

The scale and sophistication of these measures are striking. The European Union has adopted fourteen packages of sanctions targeting over 2,200 individuals and entities, immobilising approximately €210 billion of Russian Central Bank assets, and imposing sweeping sectoral restrictions on trade in energy, technology, and financial services.[58] These measures are explicitly framed not as unilateral coercion but as responses to violations of fundamental norms of international law, including the prohibition of aggression.

Crucially, this enforcement architecture was anchored to General Assembly determinations. Resolution ES-11/1, adopted on 2 March 2022 by a vote of 141 to 5, demanded Russia’s immediate withdrawal from Ukraine and deplored its aggression.[59] Subsequent resolutions suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council and affirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine.[60] While these resolutions lack binding force, they supplied the authoritative predicate that coalition states invoked to justify their measures as part of a broader international response rather than mere great-power coercion.

The regime is not without critics. Russia and others have characterised the sanctions as illegitimate unilateral coercive measures, and the international legal basis for third-party countermeasures remains contested.[61] Yet the structural significance of the episode is clear: collective enforcement occurred, coordinated across multiple jurisdictions, tethered to representative UN determinations, and operating through treaty-based frameworks — precisely the model of functional complementarity advanced in this article.

F. The Use-of-Force Question

This article has deliberately focused on non-forcible measures. The harder question - whether functional reconstruction could extend to the authorisation of force in the absence of Security Council consent - lies beyond its scope. The Charter’s architecture treats the use of force differently from other collective responses, and Article 2(4)’s prohibition, together with the narrow exceptions in Articles 42 and 51, reflects a constitutional settlement that functional reconstruction does not seek to disturb.[62]

This bracketing is not evasion. It reflects a judgment that the most pressing contemporary failures of collective security occur in domains where the Charter does not require Security Council authorisation - economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, asset freezes, arms embargoes, and coordinated non-recognition - and where institutional paralysis has been treated, incorrectly, as legally dispositive. The use-of-force question raises distinct considerations of legality, legitimacy, and risk that warrant separate treatment.[63] What matters for present purposes is that the framework developed here operates within the force/non-force distinction rather than across it.

VII. Veto Abuse, Good Faith, and the Loss of Normative Authority

The Security Council veto is a Charter-based power conferred for a specific constitutional purpose within the collective-security system. Like all treaty-based powers, it is - theoretically - constrained by the principle of good faith and by the object and purpose of the instrument that confers it.[64] Persistent use of the veto in a manner that defeats those purposes carries legal and institutional consequences, even where the formal validity of the veto itself is not in question.

This claim does not depend on the existence of any justiciable standard for reviewing individual vetoes, nor on the proposition that veto use can be rendered unlawful as such. International law routinely distinguishes between the validity of an act and its authoritative weight within a broader legal order.[65] A power may be exercised lawfully and yet, through patterns of use inconsistent with its conferring purpose, lose the capacity to command institutional deference. The doctrine of abuse of rights captures this distinction. It does not invalidate the power itself; it conditions the weight that may be attached to its exercise.

A. Abuse of Rights and Treaty-Based Powers

Charter powers, like all treaty-conferred powers, are subject to the constraints of good faith and object-and-purpose interpretation. This is a longstanding and generally accepted principle of international law.[66]

The abuse-of-rights doctrine reflects a structural principle of international law: that the exercise of a right must remain within the bounds of the purpose for which it was conferred.[67] While its precise contours remain contested, the doctrine is embedded in treaty interpretation, good-faith performance, and systemic coherence. It operates not as an instrument of nullification, but as a constraint on outcomes that would otherwise defeat the object and purpose of the legal order.

Applied to treaty-based powers, abuse of rights does not require proof of subjective bad faith. It turns on the effects of the exercise of the power within the legal system as a whole. Where repeated invocation of a treaty right predictably undermines the very function the treaty was designed to serve, the authoritative weight of that invocation weakens, potentially to the point of collapse, even if its formal legality remains intact.

The Security Council veto exemplifies this dynamic, par excellence. The veto was conferred to prevent enforcement action likely to escalate into great-power war and thereby to preserve international stability.[68] Its stabilizing logic presupposed that permanent members would ordinarily act as detached arbiters rather than as interested parties. Contemporary practice has eroded that presupposition. Vetoes are now frequently cast by states directly implicated in the conflicts at issue, or by states whose strategic interests are closely aligned with one of the parties.

B. Stabilization Versus Exculpation

This shift is constitutionally significant. Veto use consistent with the Charter’s stabilizing rationale - reflecting genuine concern about escalation, legal uncertainty, or unintended consequences -- is qualitatively different from veto use that predictably renders the Council inoperative in the face of serious violations of international law. The former preserves the Council’s role as a brake on catastrophic conflict. The latter converts it into a shield for impunity.

Where veto use functions primarily to shield conduct from collective scrutiny or consequence, it no longer performs the role for which it was conferred. The Charter does not support an interpretation under which the veto operates as a general licence to immunise conduct from collective response. To read it that way would be to constitutionalise impunity by implication. Guterres’s formulation is apt: ‘Impunity is the mother of chaos.’[69] The veto, when abused, becomes the instrument of that impunity — and the chaos follows.

This distinction does not require adjudication of individual vetoes. It operates at the level of institutional pattern. Sustained veto use in situations involving aggression, mass civilian harm, or manifest Charter violations - particularly where the vetoing state is directly interested - corrupts the meaning of Council inaction. In such circumstances, inaction cannot plausibly be characterised as an authoritative institutional determination that no response is warranted. It is the product of structural obstruction.

C. Consequences Without Invalidity

The critical move is to identify consequences that fall short of invalidation. The Charter does not contemplate judicial review of vetoes, nor does international law provide a forum capable of supplying it.[70] The legal consequence of abusive veto use therefore cannot be nullification. Instead, it lies in the loss of exclusivity. Where the Security Council is rendered persistently non-functional through veto obstruction inconsistent with the Charter’s purposes, its claim to exclusive authority over collective-security responses weakens. Council paralysis should not, in such circumstances, be treated as dispositive of what the international community may lawfully do.

This is neither novel nor radical. International law frequently recognizes that formally valid acts may fail to preclude alternative legal pathways when their effects undermine systemic coherence.[71] In the collective-security context, abusive veto use diminishes the justificatory force of arguments that only Security Council authorisation can legitimate collective response. Furthermore, loss of exclusivity is not the same as transfer of competence.

D. Authority Migration and Institutional Practice

Loss of exclusivity does not entail the disappearance of the Security Council from the constitutional landscape. The Council remains the primary organ for collective security where it can function. What changes is the distribution of authority within the system when it cannot.

Under conditions of sustained paralysis, authority may migrate - lawfully and conservatively - to other Charter-compatible mechanisms. This migration is not automatic and is subject to clear constraints. It depends on sustained patterns of obstruction rather than episodic disagreement, credible evidence of self-interested veto use, and the gravity of the underlying situation. Where these conditions are met, reliance on General Assembly determinations, treaty-based enforcement coalitions, and coordinated measures short of force becomes constitutionally justified.

Treating Council paralysis as legally dispositive in such circumstances imposes no meaningful constraint on power. It rewards obstruction and entrenches impunity. Functional reconstruction offers an alternative: consequence without rupture.

E. Distinguishing the Present Account from Reformist and Judicial Approaches

It is important to distinguish this account from two influential but ultimately unworkable approaches to the veto.

First, proposals advocating a 'responsibility not to veto' seek to impose normative restraints on veto use through political commitment.[72] As discussed above, the France-Mexico initiative called on permanent members to pledge voluntary restraint in cases of mass atrocity; only the United Kingdom has supported it. While normatively attractive, such proposals depend on voluntary compliance by those least inclined to accept restraint. They do not address the constitutional consequences of non-compliance and therefore fail precisely where the problem is most acute.

Secondly, abolitionist or judicial approaches seek either to eliminate the veto or to subject its exercise to legal review.[73] Both routes are foreclosed by the Charter’s amendment architecture and by the absence of any credible adjudicative forum. More importantly, they misunderstand the nature of the problem. The difficulty is not the existence of the veto as such, but the insistence that its obstructive use must be treated as foreclosing the international community’s capacity to respond.

The present account rejects both voluntarism and judicialization. It accepts the permanence of the veto and the impossibility of its review, while refusing to allow its abusive use to exhaust the Charter’s collective-security function.

F. Exceptionalism and the Erosion of Normative Authority

Exceptionalism accelerates the erosion of institutional authority. When powerful states invoke institutional constraints selectively - binding for others, optional for themselves — the prescriptive force of the institution migrates.[74] Authority in international law is sustained not by formal entitlement alone, but by reciprocal restraint and consistent practice.

Where restraint collapses, legitimacy dissipates. Institutions persist because states continue to treat them as authoritative. Persistent veto abuse corrodes that authority from within. Functional reconstruction does not seek to punish such abuse. It seeks to prevent the legal order from becoming hostage to it.

VIII. Operationalizing Functional Reconstruction

The preceding analysis establishes that functional reconstruction is doctrinally sound and constitutionally permissible. But doctrine without implementation is inert. This Part addresses the practical question: how would functional reconstruction operate in real time? The answer requires attention to procedural sequence, institutional coordination, and the relationship between General Assembly determinations and treaty-based enforcement mechanisms.

A. The Procedural Pathway

Functional reconstruction is not self-executing. It requires a sequence of institutional steps, each of which carries its own legitimacy requirements. The pathway from Security Council paralysis to coordinated enforcement involves four distinct phases: (i) determination of Council incapacity; (ii) General Assembly engagement; (iii) coalition formation; and (iv) implementation and accountability.

Determination of Council Incapacity. The threshold question is whether the Security Council has been rendered persistently non-functional with respect to a particular situation. This is not a matter of single vetoes or ordinary political disagreement. It requires a pattern of obstruction - multiple vetoes over an extended period, cast by states with direct interests in the outcome, in circumstances where the factual predicate for action is clear. The criteria articulated in Part V.D provide the framework: sustained incapacity attributable to veto obstruction, linked to serious threats to peace or large-scale harm.

This determination is not made by any single actor. It emerges from the convergent assessments of states, the Secretary-General, regional organizations, and ultimately the General Assembly itself. The evidentiary basis must be credible and public. Where a permanent member has cast repeated vetoes on resolutions addressing ongoing atrocities, humanitarian crises, or acts of aggression - and where that member is demonstrably interested as a party, patron, or ally - the determination of Council incapacity becomes difficult to contest in good faith.

General Assembly Engagement. Once Council incapacity is established, the General Assembly becomes the appropriate forum for collective judgment. The procedural vehicle is the emergency special session under Uniting for Peace, convened when the Council fails to act due to lack of unanimity among permanent members.[75] Any member state may request such a session, and the Assembly President must convene it within twenty-four hours.

The Assembly’s role at this stage is threefold. First, it makes an authoritative determination regarding the situation - whether it constitutes a threat to peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression. Secondly, it articulates the applicable legal framework, identifying the norms being violated and the obligations incumbent upon member states. Thirdly, it recommends specific measures, including but not limited to diplomatic isolation, suspension from UN bodies, economic restrictions, and arms embargoes.

These recommendations are not binding. But they carry constitutional weight. They represent the collective judgment of the only universally representative organ of the United Nations, adopted through procedures designed for moments of institutional crisis. They supply the authoritative predicate upon which subsequent enforcement measures can be grounded.

Coalition Formation. General Assembly determinations acquire practical effect through treaty-based enforcement coalitions. These coalitions may be pre-existing (such as the European Union, which possesses established legal frameworks for coordinated sanctions) or ad hoc (formed in response to the specific situation). What matters is that they operate through legal instruments - treaties, framework agreements, or coordinated domestic legislation - rather than mere political alignment.

The linkage between Assembly determination and coalition action is critical. Coalition states should explicitly reference the Assembly resolution as the basis for their measures, framing enforcement as implementation of a collective international response rather than unilateral coercion. This reference performs important legitimating work: it situates the measures within the UN framework, subjects them to the justificatory requirements of that framework, and preserves the institutional centrality of the organization even as enforcement occurs outside the Security Council’s formal machinery.

Coalition formation should be open rather than exclusive. states willing to participate in enforcement measures should be welcomed regardless of region, alliance, or political orientation. The broader the coalition, the stronger the claim to international rather than partisan action. Transparency regarding membership, decision-making procedures, and the scope of measures enhances legitimacy and mitigates charges of selective enforcement.

Implementation and Accountability. Enforcement measures must be implemented consistently with general international law. Treaty-based coalitions provide the legal architecture, but individual measures require domestic implementation - legislation, executive orders, regulatory action. Coordination mechanisms ensure that measures are applied uniformly, that evasion is addressed, and that unintended humanitarian consequences are monitored and mitigated.

Accountability operates at multiple levels. Coalition states are accountable to their own legal systems for the measures they adopt. They are accountable to each other under the treaty frameworks that structure their cooperation. And they are accountable to the broader international community through continued reference to the Assembly’s determinations and the Charter’s purposes. Where circumstances change - where the underlying violations cease, where the target state comes into compliance, where the factual predicate shifts - enforcement measures should be adjusted accordingly.

Accountability within enforcement coalitions presents distinct challenges. The Russia sanctions regime has attracted criticism on several grounds: alleged due process deficits in designation procedures, inadequate humanitarian exemptions, and concentration of decision-making authority in bodies (the G7, the European Council) that lack global representation. These concerns are not unfounded, and functional reconstruction does not render them irrelevant.

Three mechanisms can mitigate these risks. First, treaty-based frameworks should incorporate procedural safeguards – review mechanisms for designated individuals and entities, sunset clauses requiring periodic renewal, and exemption procedures for humanitarian goods and essential services. The European Union's sanctions architecture includes such mechanisms, however imperfectly implemented; other coalitions should adopt comparable provisions. Secondly, transparency regarding decision-making processes and criteria for designation reinforces legitimacy and enables external scrutiny. Coalitions that operate opaquely invite the charge that their measures are arbitrary rather than principled. Thirdly, continued engagement with the General Assembly – through reporting, briefings, and responsiveness to Assembly resolutions – maintains the institutional linkage that distinguishes functional reconstruction from unilateral coercion. The Assembly cannot compel coalition states to modify their measures, but it can scrutinise, criticise, and condition the legitimacy that coalition states claim.

These mechanisms do not guarantee perfect accountability. They do, however, subject enforcement coalitions to constraints beyond their own preferences – constraints that would be absent if states acted purely unilaterally. Functional reconstruction accepts that imperfect accountability is preferable to none, just as it accepts that imperfect enforcement is preferable to paralysis.

B. Institutional Coordination: Assembly, Coalition, and Secretariat

Functional reconstruction does not create new institutions. It reallocates functions among existing ones. The coordination challenge is to ensure that General Assembly determinations, coalition enforcement, and UN Secretariat support operate in alignment rather than at cross-purposes.

The General Assembly’s Continuing Role. The Assembly’s function does not end with an initial determination. It should remain seized of the situation, receiving regular reports, assessing developments, and updating its recommendations as circumstances evolve. Subsequent resolutions may intensify or relax recommended measures, respond to new violations, or acknowledge progress toward compliance. This continuing engagement reinforces the Assembly’s constitutional role and prevents enforcement coalitions from becoming detached from institutional oversight.

The Secretary-General as Facilitator. The Secretary-General possesses independent authority under Article 99 to bring to the Security Council’s attention matters that threaten international peace and security.[76] Under functional reconstruction, this role extends to facilitating Assembly engagement. The Secretary-General may provide factual briefings, offer good offices, and coordinate between the Assembly and enforcement coalitions. The Secretariat’s informational and logistical capacities support the entire process without displacing the political authority of member states.

Regional Organizations and Complementarity. Chapter VIII of the Charter contemplates a role for regional arrangements in the maintenance of peace and security.[77] Under functional reconstruction, regional organizations may serve as both contributors to Assembly deliberation and implementers of enforcement measures. The African Union, European Union, and other regional bodies possess institutional capacities that can be mobilised in support of Assembly determinations. Their participation broadens the base of enforcement and reinforces its international character.

C. A Worked Example: Syria

The Syrian conflict provides the most compelling illustration of where functional reconstruction would have applied - and what its absence cost. Between 2011 and 2023, Russia cast sixteen vetoes on Security Council resolutions addressing the Syrian situation, blocking measures ranging from humanitarian access to accountability for chemical weapons use.[78] China accompanied Russia on most of these vetoes. The factual predicate for action - mass atrocities, use of prohibited weapons, systematic violations of international humanitarian law - was extensively documented by UN mechanisms, independent commissions of inquiry, and credible international organizations.[79]

By 2012, Council incapacity was manifest. Russia had cast multiple vetoes on resolutions commanding overwhelming support among elected members; its direct military involvement from 2015 removed any pretence of detached arbitration. The criteria for residual authority were satisfied. An emergency special session under Uniting for Peace could have followed. The Assembly could have determined that Syria constituted a threat to international peace, that the government bore responsibility for widespread violations of international humanitarian law, and that coordinated measures were warranted - targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for atrocities, restrictions on arms transfers, asset freezes, diplomatic isolation.

The European Union, which ultimately adopted Syria sanctions through its own processes, could have anchored an enforcement coalition explicitly linked to the Assembly’s determination.[80] Other states - from the Arab League to individual willing partners - could have participated. Coordinated measures would have been implemented through domestic legal mechanisms, with periodic reporting to the Assembly maintaining institutional oversight.

Would this have ended the conflict? No. It would not have authorised military intervention, which remains outside the framework developed here. But it would have accomplished three things that the existing system failed to deliver:

·         It would have sustained collective judgment where silence prevailed.

·         It would have imposed consequences more comprehensive and more legitimate than the fragmented sanctions that emerged.

·         It would have preserved the institution’s claim to relevance - the UN would have been seen as capable of response, rather than as a bystander to documented mass suffering.

D. Safeguards Against Abuse

Any framework that permits collective action outside Security Council authorisation must address the risk of abuse. Functional reconstruction incorporates multiple safeguards designed to constrain overreach while preserving responsiveness.

Threshold Requirements. The criteria for invoking residual authority are demanding. Sustained Council incapacity - not episodic disagreement. Veto obstruction attributable to direct interest - not legitimate concern about escalation. Serious threats to peace or large-scale harm - not ordinary political disputes. These thresholds are not infinitely manipulable. They require credible evidence, subject to scrutiny by the Assembly and the broader international community.

Representative Deliberation. The General Assembly’s role ensures that determinations reflect broad international consensus rather than the preferences of a few powerful states. The Assembly’s composition - universal membership, sovereign equality, one-state-one-vote - provides structural protection against capture. Resolutions that command overwhelming majorities carry greater legitimacy than those adopted by narrow margins. The deliberative process itself imposes discipline, requiring states to articulate legal grounds and respond to objections.

Treaty-Based Constraint. Enforcement coalitions operate through legal instruments, not discretionary power. Treaty frameworks impose obligations on participating states, create accountability mechanisms, and establish limits on permissible measures. states that exceed their treaty commitments are subject to challenge by other coalition members and by the broader international community.

Continued UN Anchoring. Functional reconstruction does not license departure from the UN system. It requires continued reference to the Charter’s purposes, ongoing Assembly engagement, and justification in terms of international law. Actions that cannot be defended within this framework forfeit the legitimacy that functional reconstruction is designed to provide.

Non-Forcible Limitation. The framework developed here applies to measures short of force. The use-of-force question - whether functional reconstruction could extend to military action - is deliberately bracketed. This limitation is not merely prudential; it reflects the Charter’s distinctive treatment of force and the heightened risks of abuse in that domain. By confining functional reconstruction to non-forcible measures, the framework preserves the most important constraint while enabling meaningful response.

E. Relationship to Existing Reform Proposals

Functional reconstruction neither displaces nor competes with existing reform initiatives; it operates on a different plane.

Veto restraint initiatives – including the ACT Group's code of conduct (now supported by over 120 states) and the France-Mexico political declaration – seek to build a practice of voluntary restraint that might constrain abusive veto use over time. Functional reconstruction does not depend on the success of these initiatives; it provides an alternative pathway when they fail. By articulating consequences for veto abuse, it may also strengthen incentives for voluntary restraint.

Security Council expansion proposals address the institution's representational deficit but do not resolve the veto problem. New permanent members with veto power would add blocking capacity; new permanent members without it would not alter existing dynamics. Functional reconstruction is agnostic on expansion and accepts the Council as currently constituted while refusing to treat its paralysis as dispositive.

General Assembly revitalisation efforts align naturally with functional reconstruction. Resolution 76/262, adopted in 2022, requires the Assembly to convene within ten days whenever a veto is cast, providing a forum for explanation and response. This procedural innovation creates space for the Assembly engagement that functional reconstruction contemplates. It does not go as far as the framework developed here, but it represents movement in the same direction.

F. The Limits of Operationalization

Functional reconstruction cannot be reduced to a checklist. It operates within a domain of judgment, contestation, and political will. The procedural pathway described above provides structure, but structure does not guarantee outcomes.

States must be willing to invoke the framework. They must be willing to participate in enforcement coalitions, to bear the costs of sanctions, to sustain pressure over time. Political will cannot be manufactured by legal doctrine. What doctrine can do is clarify the permissible, legitimate the willing, and provide a framework within which political will can be mobilised and sustained.

The framework is also subject to challenge. states that benefit from Council paralysis will challenge the legitimacy of alternative pathways. They will invoke sovereignty, non-intervention, and the primacy of the Security Council. These challenges must be met with legal argument, institutional practice, and the accumulated weight of consistent state behaviour. Functional reconstruction becomes constitutional practice through repetition, acceptance, and demonstrated restraint - not through a single authoritative pronouncement.

Finally, functional reconstruction does not promise success. It promises capacity. The international community will remain capable of judgment and response even when the Security Council is blocked. Whether that capacity is exercised wisely, consistently, and effectively depends on choices that no legal framework can predetermine.

IX. Objections and Risks

Any proposal to recalibrate the operation of collective security without formal Charter amendment invites serious objections. The most persistent concern is that functional reconstruction risks accelerating fragmentation, legitimizing selectivity, or entrenching power politics under the veneer of legality. These objections identify genuine dangers. None, however, is decisive. Each must be assessed not against an idealised vision of the Charter system, but against the institutional reality produced by persistent Security Council paralysis.

A. Fragmentation and the Fear of Systemic Disintegration

The risk of fragmentation is frequently invoked as a reason to resist any reallocation of authority within the Charter system.[81] If authority migrates away from the Security Council, it is argued, the coherence of the collective security framework may dissolve, leaving behind a patchwork of ad hoc coalitions and competing claims to legitimacy.

This concern underestimates the extent to which fragmentation is already a feature of the existing system. Unilateral measures, informal coalitions, and selective enforcement have proliferated not because the Charter permits them, but because the Security Council cannot act. Treating Council paralysis as legally final has not preserved coherence; it has driven responses outside the institutional framework altogether.

Functional reconstruction seeks to manage fragmentation rather than deny it. By anchoring alternative pathways in General Assembly determinations and treaty commitments, it preserves a common normative reference point even when enforcement occurs outside the Council’s formal machinery. The relevant comparison is not between perfect centralization and managed pluralism, but between unmanaged fragmentation and structured adaptation.

The alternative - insisting on exclusive reliance on a paralysed Council - risks a more profound form of disintegration. When the Charter is perceived as a barrier to response rather than a framework for it, states do not wait; they feel obliged to act without it. Functional reconstruction aims to keep those actions tethered, however imperfectly, to the UN system.

B. Selectivity, Equality, and the Myth of Neutral Paralysis

Selectivity poses a deeper practical challenge. Critics may argue that functional reconstruction entrenches unequal enforcement by allowing coalitions of willing states to act where others cannot or will not. Yet selectivity is not introduced by reconstruction; it is embedded in the current system. The veto does not ensure neutrality. It ensures that some situations receive no response at all.

Paralysis is not impartiality. It reflects the interests of those with blocking power. To treat veto-induced inaction as normatively superior to selective response is to mistake absence of action for equality of treatment. In practice, paralysis privileges the interests of veto-holders and their allies, while exposing others to harm without recourse.

Functional reconstruction does not promise even-handed enforcement. It promises a reduction in total inaction. By enabling some collective responses where none would otherwise occur, it improves the system’s capacity to give effect to shared norms, even if imperfectly. That trade-off is uncomfortable, but unavoidable.

The Charter system has never guaranteed equal treatment. Its aspiration has been to constrain power politics, not to eliminate them. Functional reconstruction operates within that aspiration. It does not cure selectivity, but it mitigates the worst effects of paralysis.

C. Legitimacy, Power, and the Risk of Normalizing Exceptionalism

A further concern is that functional reconstruction risks normalizing exceptionalism. If states are permitted to act outside the Security Council when outcomes are inconvenient, the distinction between law-based action and power-based action may blur. Michael Glennon has argued that the Security Council has already ‘failed’ - that the gap between the Charter’s rules and state practice has grown so wide that the rules themselves have lost prescriptive force.[82] On this view, any attempt to work around the Council merely accelerates the decay.

Glennon is half right. The gap between rule and practice is real, and widening. But he draws the wrong conclusion. The answer to institutional erosion is not acceptance of lawlessness; it is reconstruction of legitimate pathways. Functional reconstruction does not license unilateral discretion. It requires collective articulation of legal grounds, representative deliberation, and continued reference to the Charter’s purposes. Actions taken pursuant to General Assembly determinations and treaty commitments impose justificatory and reputational burdens absent from unilateral measures.

These burdens are fundamental. They shape behaviour, constrain excess, and preserve the possibility of accountability. While they do not eliminate power politics, they subject it to institutional discipline. The relevant question is not whether power will be exercised, but whether it will be exercised within a framework that demands reasons and accepts scrutiny.

Exceptionalism thrives in silence. Functional reconstruction insists on speech.

A deeper variant of this objection holds that functional reconstruction misreads the preferences of major powers. On this view, states like Russia, China, and - at least under certain administrations - the United States may actively prefer institutional paralysis because it liberates them from multilateral constraint. The Security Council’s dysfunction is not, for these states, a problem to be solved; it is a feature to be preserved. Proposals to bypass the Council through General Assembly engagement and treaty-based coalitions would be resisted not as doctrinally unsound but as threatening to a preferred order - one in which great powers operate within spheres of influence largely unconstrained by collective judgment.

This concern has gained renewed salience. Some international relations scholars have argued that the contemporary international system is reverting to patterns of great-power competition more reminiscent of the sixteenth century than the post-1945 order - what has been termed ‘neo-royalism’, in which ruling cliques pursue transactional arrangements, personal enrichment, and hierarchical dominance rather than institutional cooperation.[83] On this account, functional reconstruction is not merely optimistic; it is anachronistic, presupposing an institutional commitment that powerful states have abandoned.

The objection has force, but it does not defeat the framework. Functional reconstruction does not depend on great-power consent. That is precisely its point. It enables collective response despite obstruction, not through the conversion of obstructing states. The relevant constituency is not the P5 but the broader membership of the United Nations - the states that comprise the General Assembly and that may choose to participate in treaty-based enforcement coalitions. The question is not whether Russia, China, or the United States will welcome such responses, but whether the international community retains the legal and institutional capacity to act when they do not.

Indeed, the emergence of alternative institutional proposals underscores the stakes. When powerful states float the possibility of rival structures - membership purchased, accountability absent, legitimacy derived from wealth rather than representation - the normative centrality of the UN becomes not an abstraction but a contested site.[84] Functional reconstruction seeks to preserve that centrality by demonstrating that the existing framework can respond to serious violations even under conditions of great-power defection. The alternative - accepting that major-power preferences are dispositive of what collective security may achieve - concedes the field before the contest begins.

None of this presupposes a benign political environment. A General Assembly that consistently condemns violations by permanent members will face resistance, retaliation, and charges of illegitimacy from those states. Treaty-based coalitions will be denounced as instruments of Western coercion. These responses are predictable. But they are responses to action, not to silence - and action that can be defended in legal terms, grounded in representative deliberation, and justified by reference to shared norms. The international legal order has survived periods of great-power competition before. Its survival has depended not on the benevolence of powerful states but on the willingness of others to insist that law constrains power, even imperfectly. Functional reconstruction is a framework for that insistence.

The more difficult question is not legality, but political feasibility. Functional reconstruction may prove politically unavailable in particular cases even where it is doctrinally sound. Great powers possess tools of resistance beyond the veto itself: diplomatic pressure on potential coalition members, economic retaliation against states that participate in enforcement measures, and sustained contestation of the framework's legitimacy in international fora. The Russia sanctions regime succeeded in part because the coalition states possessed sufficient economic weight and political cohesion to absorb these costs; a similar coalition responding to conduct by China, or indeed by the United States, might face different calculations. Functional reconstruction does not promise that collective response will always be feasible. It promises that such response is lawful and legitimate when states are willing to undertake it. The framework cannot manufacture political will, but it can clarify that political will, where it exists, may be exercised within the constraints of international law. That clarification matters. It distinguishes coordinated enforcement from mere power projection, and it preserves the possibility of principled action even when such action is costly.

D. Slippery Slopes and the Preservation of Limits

Concerns about slippery slopes merit serious attention. If residual authority is recognized in one context, what prevents its invocation in others? The answer lies in the criteria that constrain its operation. Residual authority arises only where Security Council paralysis is sustained, attributable to veto obstruction, and linked to serious threats to peace or large-scale harm. It does not arise from mere disagreement or political inconvenience.

Moreover, residual authority does not confer enforcement power. It sustains judgment, coordination, and legitimacy. The limits of the General Assembly’s role remain intact. Functional reconstruction therefore does not dismantle the Charter’s allocation of powers; it clarifies how those powers operate under stress.

E. Imperfection as a Constitutional Condition

Ultimately, the objections to functional reconstruction rest on a desire for institutional purity in a system that has never possessed it. The Charter was born of compromise. It reflects historical power realities as well as normative aspirations. Its operation has always involved trade-offs between effectiveness and restraint.

Functional reconstruction accepts imperfection as a constitutional condition. It does not seek to perfect the system, but to preserve its capacity to function. The alternative is not a pristine Charter order, but a husk - formally intact, substantively irrelevant.

X. Conclusion: Reconstruction Without Rupture

The paralysis of the Security Council in the face of contemporary threats to peace is a profound challenge to the Charter system. It does not compel abandonment of the Charter - we do not have the luxury of starting again - nor resignation to catastrophe. International law contains resources for a more measured response. The Secretary-General’s warning that ‘the context is chaos’ is not an epitaph but a diagnosis - and diagnoses invite treatment.[85]

Functional reconstruction offers a conservative path forward. It preserves institutional singularity while allowing authority to migrate in response to persistent dysfunction. By re-anchoring collective security functions in the General Assembly, giving practical effect to collective determinations through treaty-based enforcement coalitions, and recognising the consequences of abusive veto use, the international legal order can maintain continuity while restoring capacity.

The United Nations was created to prevent unrestrained power politics, not to constitutionalise it. Preserving that purpose may require adaptation as well as fidelity. The task is not to wait for systemic shock or unanimous consent, but to use the law and institutions that exist to ensure that collective security remains more than a rhetorical aspiration. Guterres concluded his address with a commitment: ‘I will make every day of 2026 count.’[86] The international community must do the same.

[1] For varying diagnoses of the crisis, see e.g. Ian Hurd, After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council (2007); David D Caron, ‘The Legitimacy of the Collective Authority of the Security Council’ 87 AJIL (1993) 552; Simon Chesterman (ed), Secretary or General? The UN Secretary-General in World Politics (2007). For recent comprehensive treatments, see Mona Ali Khalil and Floriane Lavaud (eds), Empowering the UN Security Council: Reforms to Address Modern Threats (2024); Congyan Cai, Larissa van den Herik and Tiyanjana Maluwa, The UN Security Council and the Maintenance of Peace in a Changing World (2024); and for a penetrating review essay assessing both volumes, Simon Chesterman, ‘Untied Nations? Saving the UN Security Council’ (2026) European Journal of International Law (forthcoming).

[2] UNGA, ‘Secretary-General’s Remarks to the General Assembly on Priorities for 2026’ (15 January 2026) https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statements/2026-01-15/secretary-generals-remarks-the-general-assembly-priorities-for-2026, accessed 16 January 2026.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] President Bill Clinton, 'Leadership for the Future', Address at the Royal Albert Hall, London (26 September 2006). The author was present.

[6] Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished: A US- UN Saga (1999).

[7] Kofi Annan with Nader Mousavizadeh, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace (2012).

[8] See e.g. Angela Merkel, Address at the 49th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos, 23 January 2019): ‘Commitment to multilateralism is essential and a precondition for shaping tomorrow. Anything else will lead us into destruction’; Angela Merkel, Address at the 55th Munich Security Conference (16 February 2019): ‘I am firmly convinced that it is better to put ourselves in one another’s shoes, to look beyond our own interests and to see whether we can achieve win-win solutions together rather than to think we can solve everything ourselves.’

[9] See e.g. Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, UN Doc S/1999/1257 (15 December 1999); Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, ‘A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility’ (2004) UN Doc A/59/565.

[10] The observation is not entirely fanciful. The question of who speaks for humanity in contexts requiring unified planetary representation – whether in response to existential risks, global coordination challenges, or encounters with non-human intelligence – underscores the functional necessity of a singular, representative global institution. See e.g. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 'Collective Security and the Constitution of Humanity' (2025) for a philosophical treatment of this question.

[11] See e.g. High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, supra note 9, paras 256-260; Kishore Mahbubani, ‘Council Reform and the Emerging Powers’ in Sebastian von Einsiedel, David M Malone and Bruno Stagno Ugarte (eds), The UN Security Council in the 21st Century (2016).

[12] cf. G John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (2001) (analysing how major wars have historically generated conditions for institutional reconstruction).

[13] Charter of the United Nations (adopted 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945) 1 UNTS XVI (UN Charter) arts 24, 39-51.

[14] See Ruth B Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter: The Role of the United States 1940-1945 (1958) 713-749.

[15] See Hans Kelsen, The Law of the United Nations: A Critical Analysis of Its Fundamental Problems (1950) 265-275.

[16] See generally Theodor Meron, The Humanization of International Law (2006).

[17] UN Charter, supra note 13, art 24(1): ‘In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’ (emphasis added).

[18] UN Charter, supra note 13, arts 10-14.

[19] UN Charter, supra note 13, arts 108-109.

[20] UN Charter, supra note 13, art 109(2).

[21] See FP Walters, A History of the League of Nations (1952); Thomas J Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (1992).

[22] See France and Mexico, 'Political Statement on Suspension of Veto Powers in Cases of Mass Atrocity' (1 August 2015). The initiative was supported by over 100 states but has not been adopted by the Security Council's permanent members other than France and the United Kingdom.

[23] See generally Donald S Lutz, ‘Toward a Theory of Constitutional Amendment’ 88 American Political Science Review (1994) 355; Rosalind Dixon and Richard Holden, ‘Constitutional Amendment Rules: The Denominator Problem’ in Tom Ginsburg and Rosalind Dixon (eds), Comparative Constitutional Law (2011).

[24] On the Charter as constitutional instrument, see Bardo Fassbender, The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community (2009).

[25] UNGA, supra note 2.

[26] See Bruce Ackerman, We the People: Foundations (1991); David A Strauss, ‘The Irrelevance of Constitutional Amendments’ 114 Harvard Law Review (2001) 1457.

[27] See Jan Klabbers, An Introduction to International Organizations Law (3rd ed., CUP 2015) ch 4.

[28] On the Parliament Acts as constitutional rebalancing, see Vernon Bogdanor, The New British Constitution (Hart 2009) 147-73; Jeffrey Goldsworthy, Parliamentary Sovereignty: Contemporary Debates (CUP 2010) 195-216. The Parliament Act 1911 was itself passed under threat of mass creation of Liberal peers – a further illustration of functional adaptation under constitutional stress. For the argument that the Acts represent a fundamental shift in the UK's constitutional structure rather than a mere procedural adjustment, see Alison L Young, Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Human Rights Act (Hart 2009) ch 2.

[29] The limits of comparative constitutional analogy in international institutional law are explored in Armin von Bogdandy and Ingo Venzke, In Whose Name? A Public Law Theory of International Adjudication (2014) ch 4. See also Jan Klabbers, 'Constitutionalism Lite' (2004) 1 International Organizations Law Review 31 (cautioning against over-reliance on domestic constitutional categories in international settings).

[30] See e.g. José E Alvarez, International Organizations as Law-makers (2005) 478–92; Marko Milanovic, 'The ICJ and Evolutionary Treaty Interpretation' in Christian J Tams and James Sloan (eds), The Development of International Law by the International Court of Justice (2013).

[31] On implied powers, see Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174. On peacekeeping's evolution beyond Charter text, see Nigel D White, Keeping the Peace: The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security (2nd ed., 1997) ch 8.

[32] UN Charter, supra note 13, arts 10-14, 24.

[33] See Thomas M Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations (1990). On the specific question of Security Council legitimacy, see Ian Johnstone, ‘Restoring the Legitimacy of the Security Council’ in Khalil and Lavaud, supra note 1; Ian Johnstone, ‘Security Council Deliberations: The Power of the Better Argument’ 14 EJIL (2003) 437.

[34] Ibid., at 16-19.

[35] On the independent existence of the prohibition of aggression, see GA Res. 3314 (XXIX) (14 December 1974) (Definition of Aggression); Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 3, art 8bis.

[36] cf. Oscar Schachter, ‘The Quasi-Judicial Role of the Security Council and the General Assembly’ 58 AJIL (1964) 960.

[37] On fragmentation, see Study Group of the International Law Commission, ‘Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law’ (13 April 2006) UN Doc A/CN.4/L.682.

[38] UN Charter, supra note 13, art 24(1).

[39] See Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, Paragraph 2, of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) ICJ Reports (1962) 151, 163.

[40] UN Charter, supra note 13, arts 10-14. For a practitioner’s perspective on expanding the General Assembly’s role, see Mona Ali Khalil, ‘Tapping the Full Potential of the General Assembly’ in Khalil and Lavaud, supra note 1.

[41] GA Res. 377(V) (3 November 1950) (Uniting for Peace).

[42] See Christian Tomuschat, ‘Uniting for Peace’ (United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law, 2008) https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/ufp/ufp.html.

[43] On the legal significance of institutional practice, see Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) (Advisory Opinion) ICJ Reports (1971) 16, para 22.

[44] On Korea, see GA Res. 498(V) (1 February 1951); on Suez, see GA Res. 997(ES-I) (2 November 1956) (first emergency special session).

[45] See GA Res. ES-11/1 (2 March 2022) (on Ukraine); GA Res. ES-10/21 (20 October 2023) (on Gaza).

[46] Certain Expenses, supra note 39, 163.

[47] Namibia, supra note 43, paras 105-106.

[48] On necessity in international law, see generally J. Crawford, State Responsibility: The General Part (2013), ch 7; ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Art. 25; Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary/Slovakia), Judgment, 25 September 1997, ICJ Reports (1997) 7, at 39-41.

[49] Security Council Report, ‘The Veto’ https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-security-council-working-methods/the-veto.php (documenting Russian vetoes on Syria from 2011-2023) - accessed 16 January 2026.

[50] UN Charter, supra note 13, art 2(1).

[51] Franck, supra note 33, 91-110.

[52] The literature on General Assembly dysfunction is extensive. See e.g. M J Peterson, The UN General Assembly (Routledge 2006) 84–106; Simon Chesterman, Ian Johnstone and David M Malone (eds), Law and Practice of the United Nations (2nd ed., 2016) 142–58. For a defence of the Assembly's deliberative value notwithstanding these pathologies, see Ian Johnstone, 'The Role of the UN Secretary-General: The Power of Persuasion Based on Law' (2003) 9 Global Governance 441.

[53] Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (adopted 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331, art 26.

[54] UN Charter, supra note 13, arts 2(4), 42. On the relationship between regional arrangements and the Security Council, see Tiyanjana Maluwa’s contribution in Cai, van den Herik and Maluwa, supra note 1, arguing for a ‘partnership’ model between global and regional mechanisms.

[55] See generally Antonios Tzanakopoulos, Disobeying the Security Council: Countermeasures against Wrongful Sanctions (2011).

[56] See Martti Koskenniemi and Päivi Leino, ‘Fragmentation of International Law? Postmodern Anxieties’ 15 LJIL (2002) 553.

[57] For an overview, see European Council, ‘EU Restrictive Measures against Russia over Ukraine (since 2014)’ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions/restrictive-measures-against-russia-over-ukraine/ - accessed 14 January 2026.

[58] Ibid.

[59] GA Res. ES-11/1 (2 March 2022).

[60] GA Res. ES-11/3 (7 April 2022) (suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council); GA Res. ES-11/4 (12 October 2022) (on territorial integrity).

[61] On third-party countermeasures, see ILC, ‘Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts’ (2001) UN Doc A/56/10, art 54 and Commentary.

[62] UN Charter, supra note 13, arts 2(4), 42, 51.

[63] See e.g. Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned (2000) (distinguishing legality and legitimacy in the use-of-force context).

[64] Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, supra note 53, arts 26, 31. For a comprehensive analysis of the legal limits on veto use, particularly in the context of atrocity crimes, see Jennifer Trahan, Existing Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in the Face of Atrocity Crimes (2020).

[65] See generally Hersch Lauterpacht, The Function of Law in the International Community (1933) 286-306.

[66] Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, supra note 53, art 26.

[67] Lauterpacht, supra note 65, 286-306; Michael Byers, ‘Abuse of Rights: An Old Principle, A New Age’ 47 McGill LJ (2002) 389.

[68] Russell, supra note 14, 713-749.

[69] UNGA, supra note 2.

[70] The ICJ has no jurisdiction to review Security Council decisions or individual veto use. See Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v United Kingdom) (Preliminary Objections) ICJ Reports (1998) 9.

[71] See e.g. South West Africa Cases (Second Phase) ICJ Reports (1966) 6, Dissenting Opinion of Judge Tanaka, 250-253.

[72] See text accompanying note 21 above. See also ACT Group, 'Code of Conduct regarding Security Council Action against Genocide, Crimes against Humanity or War Crimes' (23 October 2015)

[73] For abolitionist arguments, see Nico Krisch, ‘The Security Council and the Great Powers’ in Vaughan Lowe and others (eds), The United Nations Security Council and War (2008). For judicial review arguments, see Devika Hovell, The Power of Process: The Value of Due Process in Security Council Sanctions Decision-Making (2016).

[74] See Michael Glennon, ‘Why the Security Council Failed’ 82 Foreign Affairs (2003) 16.

[75] GA Res. 377(V), supra note 41, para A(1).

[76] UN Charter, supra note 13, art 99.

[77] UN Charter, supra note 13, ch VIII (arts 52-54).

[78] Security Council Report, supra note 49.

[79] See e.g. UN Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic’ (16 August 2012) UN Doc A/HRC/21/50; OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism Reports.

[80] Council of the European Union, 'Syria: EU Restrictive Measures' https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions/syria/ - accessed 16 January 2026.

[81] See Koskenniemi and Leino, supra note 56.

[82] See Michael Glennon, ‘Why the Security Council Failed’ 82 Foreign Affairs (2003) 16.

[83] Goddard and Newman, ‘Further Back to the Future: Neo-Royalism, the Trump Administration, and the Emerging International System’ 79 International Organization (2025) S12, arguing that contemporary great-power behaviour reflects a return to pre-Westphalian ‘neo-royalist’ politics in which ruling cliques seek hierarchy and rent extraction rather than state-based cooperation.

[84] In January 2026, the US administration announced a 'Board of Peace' – a body offering permanent membership for $1 billion, explicitly welcoming participation from Russia. See 'Board of Peace' (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Peace - accessed 15 January 2026. Whatever its prospects, the proposal illustrates the fragmentation pressures that functional reconstruction seeks to resist.

[85] UNGA, supra note 2. On the Charter’s remarkable endurance and the need to renew its foundational balance, see Devika Hovell, ‘The UN Charter at 80’ (EJIL: Talk!, 23 October 2025): ‘Collective security was never a finished design; it was a promise - that the world could restrain its worst instincts through shared institutions of judgment and restraint.’

[86] Ibid.