80 years of the UN issuing resolutions in favor of peace and development

The UN replaced the failed League of Nations, which emerged after World War I (1914-1919) through the Treaty of Versailles. It is true that the United Nations, according to the Charter of San Francisco, which is its founding treaty, has as its central purpose the maintenance of world peace.

It is also true that this was the goal of the League of Nations, whose inexorable fate was its disappearance because it was unable to preserve international peace. Has the UN been able to do so since 1945? Although it may be hard to believe, the answer is yes.

Since its creation, the UN has had to endure regional or localized wars over the past eight decades. Thus, it was unable to prevent the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Syria, and most recently Russia and Ukraine, and Israel against Hamas (Palestinian) and Hezbollah (Lebanese), the latter two being referred to as unconventional actors. However, it is also true that, despite its successes and shortcomings, the UN continues to prevent a third world war from breaking out, which would be a complete disaster for humanity.

I believe that this effort continues to be carried out. There are those who are clamoring for reform of the UN Security Council, and that could be a good thing, but care must be taken to ensure that, in doing so, the veto rights of the five permanent members of the Security Council are preserved, as has been the case until now.

If the intention were to expand the Council from five to seven members, the UN would end up as an ineffective and useless organization, as I cannot see Russia or China, members of the Council, continuing to be part of an organization in which they will always be marginalized as a minority in the face of the clear predominance of what the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, the other three members, agree on, achieving whatever they set out to do, including on a whim.

Thus, with the balance of world power gone—which is what has given life to the UN throughout its 80 years, which we are celebrating—its end would be inevitable, just as it happened to the League of Nations, which died out precisely because the world's great powers were not part of it.

On the 80th anniversary of the creation of the UN, I highlight its efforts to maintain world peace, always issuing resolutions to end conflicts and turn the page in favor of the development of peoples, as we all hope for these days in the question of Western Sahara—North Africa—taking up the proposal for autonomy for that southern region of the Kingdom of Morocco, put forward by King Mohammed VI in 2007, which to date has earned recognition and acceptance from states of an ecumenical dimension, that is, similar in size to the UN itself.

Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Mackay. Former Foreign Minister of Peru and Internationalist