"Distorted power relations render multilateral institutions non-operational." Critically analyse in the context of the UN Security Council.

The UN Charter vests primary responsibility for international peace in a 15-member Security Council, where five permanent members hold a veto over all substantive decisions [1]. This freezes the power equations of 1945 into a permanent legal privilege — a distortion that, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres observed at the 2026 BRICS Summit in New Delhi, leaves the Council "paralysed" [8]. Yet paralysis is not total incapacity.

How distorted power relations disable the Council

• Veto by a party to the conflict: members have repeatedly objected that a permanent member should not vote on disputes it is itself involved in, as in the failed resolutions on Ukraine [2].
• Impunity, not merely deadlock: General Assembly delegates have warned that the veto is used to shield narrow interests and enable impunity, obstructing cooperation [3].
• Representation deficit: an unchanged post-War structure excludes Africa, Latin America and much of Asia, eroding the Council's legitimacy with the Global South [4].
• Outdated working methods, alongside shrinking resources, compound the gridlock in crises from Gaza to Ukraine [6].

Why "non-operational" overstates the case

• Council decisions remain legally binding on all members under the Charter, unlike recommendatory Assembly resolutions [1].
• Peacekeeping mandates, sanctions regimes and humanitarian authorisations continue to pass where P5 interests do not collide [6].
• Contestation has itself generated correctives — veto-restraint initiatives in mass-atrocity situations and sustained reform debate [2][3].

The reform trap Charter amendment under Article 108 requires ratification by all permanent members, giving the P5 an effective veto over abolishing their own veto [7]. Reform thus depends on the very asymmetry it seeks to cure.

The Council is therefore not defunct but selectively operational — effective on the periphery of great-power rivalry, immobile at its centre. The Secretary-General has rightly called expansion and reform "imperative" [5], and genuine reform is seen as crucial to restoring public trust in the UN [4]. Incremental steps — an expanded membership reflecting multipolar realities, voluntary veto restraint, and transparent working methods — offer a credible path to restoring the Council's promise of collective security.