The United Nations General Assembly — a ‘toothless tiger,’ or site of ‘corridor diplomacy?’
Even as government officials use the occasion to flash their diplomatic bona fides, age-old questions persist about the role of an institution that functions as an organ of soft power and consensus.
The world’s leaders are gathered in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly amid a plethora of escalating global challenges.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian delivered what amounted to a fiery defense of Tehran’s position Wednesday amid its ongoing seven-month conflict with the United States. Officials from both sides resumed talks aimed at ending hostilities and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines to discuss the war in Ukraine and was also scheduled to meet Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to the White House.
But even as government officials use the occasion to flash their diplomatic bona fides, age-old questions persist about the role of an institution that functions as an organ of soft power and consensus.
Is the United Nations, created in 1945 to maintain international peace and security through collective action and diplomacy, the “toothless tiger” that some politicians and observers claim it is?
Fiona Creed, associate professor at Northeastern, who formerly served as executive director of the United Nations Association of Greater Boston, thinks there is certainly room for critique.
The “toothless tiger” label, referring to the fact that the U.N. lacks the power to ensure states adhere to its decisions, captures “something real,” she said.
Take the Security Council, the U.N.’s primary body tasked with maintaining international peace and security. The council’s veto power means that the U.N. can’t force desired outcomes, such as compelling Russia to end its attack on Ukraine, because enforcement “depends on the political will of major powers,” Creed said. When the powers are divided, the council can become paralyzed.
This isn’t merely a leadership failure, Creed said. The protocol is “baked into the U.N.’s 1945 design,” she added.
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However, the U.N. does have enforcement mechanisms for legally binding Security Council decisions. They include economic sanctions and sometimes the authorization of military force, according to the UN Charter. Prior military authorizations were greenlit, for example, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, also in establishing humanitarian relief in Somalia during the country’s civil war in 1992 and in protecting civilians in Libya in 2011 amid internal strife and a government crackdown on anti-government protesters.
But those mechanisms require consensus among the Security Council’s members — and especially its five permanent members that include the United States, China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom. As the United States drifts from its international commitments, marshalling consensus grows more difficult, Creed said.
But for Creed, the problem is just that: the world’s most powerful nations — the U.S., Russia and China — often have competing interests. Fostering agreement is not only harder to obtain, but wars and emerging geopolitical rivalries can push those powers to become more entrenched around their own national interests.
“This toothless tiger critique is really an indictment of great power politics, not of the U.N. itself,” Creed said, adding that to judge the international body “purely on its capacity to compel great powers” is a misreading of its foundational principles.
“The U.N.’s practical value shows up less in Council votes and more in corridor diplomacy,” Creed said.
Those are the talks taking place on the sidelines. The U.N. General Assembly week puts adversarial leaders in the same city at the same time, which can create informal openings for in-person contact that might not otherwise happen.
“That piece is easy to overlook because it doesn’t make headlines,” Creed said.
What has made headlines, so far, is Trump’s rhetoric, including his criticism of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, an international prosecutorial body based in The Hague, Netherlands, which he described as a “rogue institution,” and called on to resign. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is closely aligned with Trump, over alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
During his Tuesday address to the assembly, the U.S. president also mused that he faces a choice between making a deal with Iran or annihilating the Mideast country — comments uttered as the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sat stone-faced in the audience.
His degradation of the ICC, persistent criticisms of the U.N. and incendiary rhetoric about next steps in Iran “seem to be complete rejections of international norms and laws concerning the war and use of force, human rights and the role of the United Nations in maintaining international peace and security,” said Julie Garey, a Northeastern University associate teaching professor of political science.
Garey said the lambasting hardly fits with the spirit of institutional cooperation. Moreover, she said, it could threaten international norms more broadly.
“Indicating that the United States no longer sees value in these institutions and expectations for state behavior could lead even more states to do the same,” she said.
