Why the UN isn’t capable of overseeing superheroes

NEW YORK — This past week, I attended two events: Baltimore Comic-Con and the United Nations General Assembly’s annual meeting of world leaders.

The pair have much in common: superpowers and panel discussions; wannabe empires and conflicted leaders; Captain America and an America that always ends up as captain.

But only one of the two events left me happy and hopeful. Obviously, I’m referring to the gathering in Baltimore.

The New York-based General Assembly meeting, meanwhile, has saddled me with an unusual amount of angst about the United Nations and, by extension, what to expect in a world with no superheroes to save it.

The U.N. has become so dysfunctional that — despite a strong new push for reform — I’m starting to think it’s beyond repair. What’s especially nerve-wracking is that the institutional decay comes at a perilous time, with the great powers falling into rival blocs as if another global war is imminent. And it’s that rivalry between the United States, China and Russia that’s at the core of the U.N.’s malfunction.

I know, I know. The U.N. has long been messy — the topic of think tank despair and reform proposals going back decades. Still, diplomats, analysts, NGO officials and others I’ve been speaking to agree that the situation today is critical, even as they dutifully show up and go through the motions of attending meetings and delivering speeches.

“You come to New York, and you kind of feel like you’re doing exactly the same thing we’ve done year after year after year, and it’s not only repetitive, but now it’s just not cutting through,” an African diplomat told me.

One former U.S. ambassador was even more dismissive when I asked if the U.N. mattered anymore. “It’s a place for people to meet,” he said.

The United Nations is charged with maintaining global peace and security. But its most important organ, the U.N. Security Council, is largely frozen due to tensions among the U.S., China and Russia, all permanent members wielding vetoes. Whether on border-crossing crises, such as Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, or internal ones such as in Sudan, the council has struggled to make meaningful moves, if it acts at all. One speaker this year compared it to a “zombie.”

“The truth is that the Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today: Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told Al Jazeera in an interview published this month.

That doesn’t inspire hope in exhausted populations looking for human solutions amid wars, famines and climate-related chaos. If anything, it leaves space for dark forces to rise. At least at Comic-Con, I felt optimistic that the good guys would emerge victorious.

What have U.N. diplomats spun to me as a victory on the council lately? When their resolution receives more support on the Security Council than a rival country’s resolution — even though neither resolution passes.

“There’s no tenable way the Security Council continues on for another decade or two decades this way,” one former U.N. diplomat said.

Increasingly, as my colleague Robbie Gramer has chronicled, the infighting is affecting what would have been routine matters of cooperation just a few years ago, such as enforcing sanctions on North Korea’s totalitarian regime.

Other United Nations institutions, such as its refugee, health and environmental arms, are struggling to keep up with challenges. Their appeals for more resources, such as for the record number of people displaced around the world, are often falling on deaf ears. The deaths of more than 220 U.N. staffers in the war in Gaza have badly hurt morale. The prospect of Donald Trump returning to the U.S. presidency and slashing U.N. funds also looms.

Looking ahead, China’s rise could spell more U.N. gridlock. Beijing is seeking roles at the U.N. that will help it shape global rules, worrying Washington.

All the while, less powerful countries are watching such grand skirmishes with frustration and cynicism. They cannot forget how, as the coronavirus was spreading and their populations were suffering, the Security Council went months before even meeting on it.

(Some of you fellow geeks may be wondering by now how I feel about the United Nations regulating superheroes, a theme of one of the Avengers movies. I do not think the current U.N. at any level should have such a responsibility — its slowness and diplomatic inanities would frustrate the good guys.

“Good God, if you had a U.N. committee on superheroes, I think most of the superheroes would go over to the side of the villains,” said Richard Gowan, a U.N. analyst with the International Crisis Group.)

It’s been said that lambasting the U.N. for the failures of its member states is like blaming Madison Square Garden for how the New York Knicks play. But if a basketball stadium’s floor is warped and the scoreboard doesn’t work, why should any team play there at all?

How much longer is the U.N. going to be a place even to meet?

Chinese leader Xi Jinping almost never attends the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering. Russia’s Vladimir Putin also often skips it, though lately it’s probably because he’s trying to avoid arrest. Last year, of the five people leading the Security Council’s permanent members, only U.S. President Joe Biden showed up.

Groupings such as the G7 or the G20, on the other hand, see deals get done — so don’t be surprised if more such forums are started, or expanded, and the U.N. fades further into irrelevance. Events on the sidelines this week, such as the Clinton Global Initiative, often drew more excitement than those at U.N. headquarters.

To their credit, Guterres and many others atop the U.N. system, including the United States, are pushing for changes. Their reform proposals were a major topic of this year’s gathering, and in the long run, they could be the most important outcome, even if they don’t make for splashy headlines.

But the process makes me believe things will get worse.

Guterres this past week hosted the Summit of the Future, which resulted in a global pact that included plans for reforming global governance mechanisms, including the Security Council. The negotiations were grueling and monthslong, and, true to form, the pact is nonbinding.

None of the leaders of the five permanent members of the Security Council showed up to honor it. And in a last-minute twist, Russia offered an amendment that, in essence, would have watered down the agreement by saying the United Nations will stay out of a country’s internal affairs. The amendment didn’t pass, but Russia made its point.

The United States also this month unfurled its latest vision for reforming the Security Council. The main piece is that the U.S. is open to adding more permanent members to an expanded council, which currently has 15 slots. In particular, the U.S. has agreed that Africa deserves two of the permanent seats.

But under the plan, the new permanent members won’t get veto power, while the existing ones won’t give up theirs. So what’s the point? I’m also hearing whispers that there’s sure to be epic infighting among African countries over which get the permanent seats, so that should be … interesting.

While at Comic-Con, I attended panels about “world-building” and gawked at a “weapons check” station with real police officers. Alas, the discussion on whether Godzilla could save the planet from humankind was canceled.

I also ran into actor Daniel Kash, who played Private Spunkmeyer in the movie Aliens. I asked how he’d compare Baltimore Comic-Con to the U.N. General Assembly’s gathering. He thought for a second and asked of the two events: “What’s more honest?”

As world leaders delivered their speeches to the General Assembly, I kept coming back to that question. So much at the U.N. felt performative. It always does.

And yet, these are the people with actual power.