Transforming the United Nations from New York Entrapment

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 3 Mar 2025

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens - TRANSCEND Media Service

Navigating Uncharted Waters in Quest of Relevance in a Shifting World

Introduction

1 Mar 2025 – There is a long history of proposals to reform the United Nations. These predate the new foreign policies of the USA as instigated by Donald Trump, together with the dramatic commitment to efficiency embodied in the role of Elon Musk. As of the time of writing, these have seemingly had relatively little implication for the UN system. It is however the case that Trump immediately instigated the withdrawal of the US as a primary contributor to the World Health Organization. This followed from his earlier announcement in 2018 of withdrawal of the USA from the Universal Postal Union. Following his presidential inauguration, Donald Trump formally nominated Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the United Nations — an appointment reflective of controversial policies in anticipation of their further development.

Laws passed in the USA after Palestine applied for UNESCO and WHO membership in April 1989 meant that the USA could not contribute financially to any UN organization that accepted Palestine as a full member. As a result, the USA withdrew its funding, which had accounted for about 22% of UNESCO’s already restricted budget. 2023 saw Russia excluded from the UNESCO executive committee for the first time. The United States stated its intent to rejoin UNESCO in 2023, 5 years after leaving, and to pay its $600 million in back dues — and was duly readmitted by the UNESCO General Conference in 2023.

In 2018, citing a “failure to mobilize adequate and appropriate burden sharing,” the Trump administration stopped funding UNRWA, calling its fundamental business model and fiscal practices “simply unsustainable”. However, the Biden administration restarted funding in April 2021. On 28 October 2024, the Israeli Knesset passed legislation that ordered UNRWA to cease “any activity” in territories claimed by Israel within 90 days.The Israeli government, for its part, declared that it will terminate all collaboration, communication and contact with UNRWA beginning on January 30, 2025.

In a rapidly evolving foreign policy context, there are other indications (Walden Bello, The IMF and World Bank Await Elon Musk, CounterPunch, 26 February 2025). The UN Human Rights Council has offered another instance, as argued by Amnesty International (U.S. Withdrawal from UN Human Rights Council Is Performative Disregard for Human Rights, 5 February 2025). Prior to Trump’s inauguration and policy reversals, Russian delegations to the UN HQ were variously challenged and delayed (The Russian Foreign Ministry hopes that the Trump administration will normalize the issuance of visas, Pravda, 2025). This is seemingly consistent with public opinion in the USA (Inken von Borzyskowski, Public support for withdrawal from international organizations: experimental evidence from the US, The Review of International Organizations, 19, 2024, 4)

A potentially ominous Executive Order has now been signed by Trump (Withdrawing the United States from and ending funding to certain United Nations organizations and reviewing United States support to all international organizations, 4 February 2025). This has been followed by an initiative to withdraw the USA from membership of the UN (Republicans introduce bill on full US withdrawal from the UN: what will happen next, Oboz, 21 February 2025; Bill on full withdrawal from UN introduced in US Congress, Pravda, 21 February 2025; Lee introduces Defund Act to Pull USA from UN, 20 February 2025). Such an initiative could be understood as a punitive response to the isolation of the US by an overwhelming majority of Member States in adopting UN General Assembly resolutions demanding that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (September 2024) and subsequently demanding a Gaza cease fire and hostage release (December 2024). The problematic possibilities have been more recently clarified (Musk backs US withdrawal from UN and NATO, RT, 2 March 2025).

Intriguingly, despite such pressures, the US might choose to avoid complete withdrawal in order to continue to derive public relations benefit through use of its veto power. Otherwise, in its absence, the majority of other countries could be free to vote against the perceived interests of the USA.

The technicalities of such withdrawal, especially as a Permanent Member of the Security Council, are nevertheless under consideration, as with their implications (Eleanor Stratton, Can the U.S. Legally Exit the United Nations? US Constitution.net, 20 February 2025; Kalyani Yeola, The U.S. Withdrawal from International Organisations: What it means for Global Order? Modern Diplomacy, 10 February 2025; Inken von Borzyskowski, et al, When do member state withdrawals lead to the death of international organizations? European Journal of International Relations, 30, 2024, 3; Global Governance After U.S. Withdrawal, Council on Foreign Relations, 19 April 2018).

In this context careful (but rapid consideration) is merited with respect to the relocation of the UN HQ from New York — as previously clarified (Alfred de Zayas, Relocating UN Headquarters out of the United States, CounterPunch, 28 April 2023). The latter noted:

Gradually one hears voices posing the question whether UN headquarters should remain in New York, or perhaps, whether the time has come to consider other possible venues.  Most UN offices are still in New York, including DESA, OCT, UNDEF, UNDT, UNODA, UNICEF, and, of course, the UN Security Council, General Assembly, and the Secretary General himself…. More and more one becomes aware that many countries resent the manner in which the United States Government performs its obligations as host of the Organization. In 2020 the General Assembly Sixth Committee had to deal with complaints against the US for non-compliance with the Headquarters Agreement (Tackling Host Country Report, Sixth Committee Speakers Highlight Abuses of Headquarters Agreement, Urge Secretary-General to Invoke Arbitration, UN Press Release, 23 October 2020)

The summary from 2023 concludes:

In order to reflect the growing importance of the developing world, there are many countries that could conceivably host the United Nations headquarters.  One could think of Mexico, and the cities of Puebla and Guadalajara, which have advanced infrastructure.  Surely Brazil — either Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo.  South Africa would be a credible candidate, and the cities of Cape Town or Durban would be worthy venues.  India, the most populous country in the world, would benefit from UN presence — Delhi and Bangalore have much international experience.

Such possibilities aside, “moving the UN” merits exploration as a metaphor, much as “turbocharging” was used by the Secretary-General with respect to the Sustainable Development Goals on the occasion of the UN Summit of the Future (2024). There is a profound irony to the fact of the UN headquarters being located in a country with an unprecedented national debt of over $35 trillion — a country which could also be readily held to be morally and ethically bankrupt, despite the fundamental role of religion there (and in the election of its current president). The strategic detachment of the US from the principles on which the UN was founded — and the explicit focus on self-interest — are especially suggestive of the need of the UN to “move on” — however that is to be understood.

The following exploration is a development of arguments made previously (Symbolic Relocation of United Nations HQ to Jerusalem Vicinity, 2017; Build the Wall — Move the UN HQ? 2017; Merits of Moving the UN HQ to Baghdad, 2003). The focus here is on the controversial, but symbolic, question of an appropriate location in the current global context.

The presentation continues the experiment with AI in the form of ChatGPT 4o and DeepSeek. Their responses have been framed as grayed areas. Given the length of the document to which the exchanges gave rise, the form of presentation has itself been treated as an experiment — in anticipation of the future implication of AI into research documents. Only the “questions” to AI are rendered immediately visible — with the response by AI hidden unless specifically requested by the reader (a facility not operational in PDF variants of the page, in contrast with the original).

Reservations and commentary on the process of interaction with AI to that end have been discussed separately (Methodological comment on experimental use of AI, 2024). Editing responses has focused only on formatting, leaving the distractions of any excessive “algorithmic flattery” for the reader to navigate (as in many social situations where analogous “artificial” conventions are common). Whilst the presentation of responses of two or more AIs could be readily considered unnecessary, it offers a comparative perspective highlighting the strengths and limitations of each in eliciting insight from the range of resources to which each has access.

Readers are of course free to amend the questions asked, or to frame other related questions — whether with the same AIs, with others, or with those that become available in the future. In endeavouring to elicit insight from the world’s resources via AI, the process calls for critical comment in contrast with more traditional l methods for doing so.

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