The escalation of the conflict between the United States and Iran once again raises the question of the limits of power politics and of the ability of international institutions to fulfill their fundamental function: preventing the expansion of war. Of particular concern is the fact that this escalation is unfolding against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine and the broader weakening of international legal mechanisms of restraint.
Under such conditions, it appears logical to turn not only to bilateral or regional diplomatic channels, but also to the instruments available to the United Nations. It was precisely the UN that was created as a universal structure for responding to threats to international peace and security. In practice, however, calls for its active involvement are becoming increasingly rare. This is primarily due to the accumulated skepticism regarding its actual effectiveness.
The limitations of the UN became most evident in connection with Russia’s war against Ukraine. The General Assembly repeatedly adopted resolutions condemning Russia’s aggression and reaffirming the fundamental principles of international law. However, the Security Council proved incapable of taking effective action, since Russia, as a permanent member of the Council, blocked such decisions through its veto power. This experience once again demonstrated the structural problem of the current international security system: a universal organization depends on a mechanism in which permanent members of the Security Council are capable of paralyzing the collective will of the majority of states.
The permanent members of the Security Council are capable of paralyzing the collective will of the majority of states.
At the same time, actions by the United States outside its territory have repeatedly been carried out without full international discussion and without a clear mandate from the UN Security Council. The most well-known example remains the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Its consequences were significant not only for the region, but also for the international system itself: bypassing the UN undermined confidence in institutions of collective security and reinforced the perception that force, rather than law, remains the decisive factor in world politics.
Nevertheless, criticism of the UN’s practice does not lead to the conclusion that the organization itself is useless. On the contrary, the absence of an effective alternative makes the question of its role even more relevant. The UN was created after two world wars as an attempt to build a mechanism for preventing global catastrophes. Its most important political and normative achievement was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while its institutional logic was originally built around the idea of collective responsibility for peace.
At the same time, the weaknesses of the UN are not accidental. They are embedded in the very model of its creation. The organization was formed by the victorious powers of the Second World War, which simultaneously sought to create a universal international order while preserving their own privileges. As a result, a system emerged that combined the principle of the formal equality of states in the General Assembly with the exceptional status of the permanent members of the Security Council — the victors of World War II: the USSR, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and China. This contradiction persists even today, 80 years later. All of these countries were granted veto power, and there is no mechanism to alter this arrangement within the UN Charter.
That is why, under current circumstances, the issue should not be framed in terms of abstract trust or distrust in the UN, but rather in terms of the practical use of the mechanisms that still remain available. Given the risk of further escalation of the conflict between the United States and Iran, it appears necessary to urgently activate the procedures for collective response provided for by the UN Charter and established international practice.
The first step could be to place the issue before the Security Council for urgent consideration. Naturally, the European permanent members — France and the United Kingdom — could initiate such a move. Judging by the recent meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, the United States and China may not block this proposal, as both sides could be interested in shifting the resolution of the deadlocked conflict onto a collective body. Russia, meanwhile, is unlikely to oppose its Chinese “friends.” Thus, at the initiative of European countries, a collective framework for resolving the conflict could emerge, which would also receive support from the General Assembly.
Even if the Security Council failed to reach an agreed decision, bringing the issue before it would still be significant. Discussion within the Security Council itself would create an institutional and political framework for international pressure in favor of de-escalation, as well as for coordinating minimum risk-reduction measures, including the security of international shipping routes and the prevention of further expansion of the conflict.
If, however, the Security Council proves incapable of taking the necessary measures because of disagreements among its permanent members, a second path remains: convening an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly under the procedure established by Resolution 377 A (V), “Uniting for Peace.” This mechanism was designed precisely for situations in which the Security Council cannot act despite the existence of a threat to international peace and security. In such circumstances, the General Assembly does not replace the Security Council, but it gains the ability to formulate a consolidated position of the international community and recommend collective political and diplomatic measures to states.
The alternative is the final consolidation of a model in which international crises are resolved exclusively through force.
Of course, the powers of the General Assembly are limited. Its resolutions do not carry the same binding legal force as Security Council decisions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. However, in times of crisis, not only formal binding force matters, but also international legitimacy. A politically consolidated position of the majority of states can influence the calculations of the parties to a conflict, especially when further escalation carries excessively high economic, military, and reputational costs.
The skeptical position in this case is predictable: if the UN was unable to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine, why should it prove more effective in the case of a conflict between the United States and Iran? Yet these situations are not entirely identical. In the Russian-Ukrainian war, one of the permanent members of the Security Council is itself a direct party to the conflict and systematically blocks any decisions directed against it. In the situation surrounding Iran, the configuration of interests may be less rigid. For some international actors, including European states and China, de-escalation is objectively preferable to further expansion of the conflict. In addition, for the United States, the international legitimization of its own actions may also have practical significance, particularly given domestic political constraints and public reaction to the risk of a prolonged war.
In this sense, the task of the international community is not to idealize the UN, but to use it as the only universal platform where a collective position on questions of war and peace can still be formulated. The alternative is the final establishment of a model in which international crises are resolved exclusively through force and outside any common procedures. This trend is already visible, but its further consolidation would mean not merely the weakening of the UN, but the further erosion of the entire international security system.
The conflict between the United States and Iran has consequences that extend far beyond bilateral relations. It affects the stability of the Middle East, the security of global transportation routes, energy markets, and overall macroeconomic stability. If it continues to expand, it could provoke not only regional but also global destabilization. That is why its resolution should not be viewed solely as a matter of the balance of power between two states. It is a question of the international order as a whole.
Under these circumstances, turning to UN mechanisms is not a sign of illusion, but of political realism. Despite all its limitations, the UN remains the only structure in which the issue of de-escalation can be raised in a universal rather than narrowly bloc-based format. And if the international community does not even attempt to use these instruments, this will become yet another confirmation that the world is finally returning to the logic not of law, but of force.
Lev Ponomarev — Russian human rights activist, President of the Andrei Sakharov Institute
The text was prepared with the participation of institute staff members Nikolai Koblyakov and Elena Kotenochkina.
Published on “Radio Liberty” on May 20, 2026.