A possible essay plan on reform of the UN

How should the UN be reformed?

Introduction: Start with a reference to a recent event or statement of importance to the question. For example 2018-2019

https://reform.un.org/news/un-secretary-general-ant%C3%B3nio-guterres-marks-%E2%80%9Cgo-live%E2%80%9D-sweeping-un-reforms-1-january-2019

https://reform.un.org/news/interview-jens-wandel-special-advisor-sg-reform

https://reform.un.org/news/un-secretary-general-ant%C3%B3nio-guterres-un-reform

https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/ga12091.doc.htm

Give some of the reasons why the UN is important and thus why it needs to be an effective organization. It is simply the largest, most important and universal international organization. It is the main international organization responsible for promoting and ensuring peaceful relations between states and respect for human rights, so if it fails in its mission the global community is in trouble. It is the main public forum for international debate, and in many ways its institutions and protocols set the moral standards for how actors within the international community should act. It is the world’s premier aid organization and provider of emergency, development and educational programs.

Line of argument: this essay will argue that there is general consensus about the need for UN Reform but less agreement about how this should be achieved. It will also be argued that radical UN Security Council reform is unlikely and the structural reforms called for in other areas and being launched in 2019 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres may also prove in practice quite difficult. It can be argued that the real role of the UN and ICC is to create a normative environment and language regarding relations between states based on peaceful coexistence and cooperation, collective security and mutual respect in the hope that states and individuals will gradually reform and conform over time.

Why is there a need for reform? Why is the current structure of the UNSC unrepresentative? How could it be made more representative? Why is this difficult? What are the voting requirements in the General Assembly and on the SC for any reform to be adopted? What's the current situation?

Wider reforms: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan 1997-2006 /management / waste / bureaucracy / inefficiencies /development/ duplication and overlapping / recruitment / corruption, accountability and immunity / effectiveness of UN peace-keeping and humanitarian operations (R2P or RtoP) or the lack of an operation / The UN Human Rights Council / aid dependence. What has been achieved since 2006? Why is it hard to make progress on internal reform? What are the current reforms (2019) designed to achieve?

What are the political limitations on any major changes given the UN's history? Idealism / Realism / Functionalism / what happened to the League of Nations.

Conclusion: Thus, given what we have said above, the international community, the UN Secretary General and Secretariat and the UN members should continue to push for reform of the SC and wider reforms in the way the UN functions but we should be realistic about the prospects. One could argue, in fact, that the real role of the UN and ICC is to create a normative environment and language regarding peaceful relations between states, democratic values and human rights in the hope that states and individuals will gradually reform and conform over time. The UN is responsible for creating and reinforcing the diplomatic language and behavioural norms for international relations based on peaceful coexistence and cooperation, collective security and mutual respect. If we compare the cooperation and dialogue between states today and at any time before or during the Cold War it would be difficult to deny that the UN and the international community have made some very real progress.