The United Nations at 80: Democracy or Hypocrisy.
As the United Nations marks its 80th General Assembly, one would expect a moment of sober reflection, a chance to celebrate global cooperation, reassert the values of human dignity, and renew the commitment to universal dialogue. Instead, the event has been overshadowed by glaring contradictions that strike at the very heart of what the UN is supposed to represent. The denial of entry to leaders from Colombia and Palestine, and the continued chokehold of the Security Council veto, force us to ask an uncomfortable but necessary question: is the UN truly democratic, or has it become an institution that enshrines inequality under the guise of internationalism?
The most immediate controversy at this year’s Assembly was the exclusion of certain leaders by the host nation, the United States. While the UN Charter guarantees equality among member states, the reality is that the host country enjoys de facto control over who is physically allowed into the General Assembly hall. When Washington denies visas to heads of state or foreign ministers, it does more than inconvenience individuals; it undermines the sovereignty of their nations and strips millions of people of their right to be represented on the world stage.
This practice, though not unprecedented, has always been controversial. During the Cold War, Soviet diplomats were occasionally restricted in their movements within the United States. More recently, Iranian leaders have complained of delays or denials of entry. But what we see now is more blatant; attendance at the UN has been reduced to a political privilege, dispensed according to the interests of the host rather than the universal principles the UN claims to embody. The symbolism is devastating. If some nations can be silenced at will, what message does that send about the supposed equality of all states?
The problem is structural. By locating the UN headquarters in New York, the world effectively gave one nation, the United States of America, the power to serve as gatekeeper of global deliberation. That power has now been weaponized, turning the UN into a stage where the script is influenced not by the collective will of humanity but by the political calculations of a single government. The issue is not whether the United States has the right under domestic law to grant or deny visas; it is whether the global community can tolerate such a fundamental distortion of what is meant to be a neutral space of dialogue.
If the host nation’s control over attendance is troubling, the veto power of the Security Council’s permanent members is catastrophic. For 80 years, the veto has functioned as an instrument of impunity, shielding powerful nations and their allies from accountability while nullifying the voices of the majority.
The UN Charter’s architects, in the aftermath of World War II, sought to prevent future global conflicts by vesting exceptional powers in the victors; the United States, the Soviet Union (now Russia), China, the United Kingdom, and France. The logic was brutally pragmatic: without special privileges, the great powers might not participate at all. Yet what was conceived as a safeguard against paralysis has itself become the source of paralysis.
Consider the record. Efforts to condemn apartheid South Africa were repeatedly blocked by Western vetoes during the Cold War. More recently, Russia has vetoed resolutions concerning Syria’s civil war and its invasion of Ukraine. The United States has consistently vetoed resolutions critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Each veto has the same effect: it renders the majority will meaningless. Ninety or 180 countries may agree on a course of action, but if just one permanent member objects, the matter is dead.
This is not democracy; it is oligarchy on a global scale. Worse still, it is an oligarchy that enshrines wartime power dynamics from 1945 as eternal truths. The populations of Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the Middle East, home to the majority of humanity, remain excluded from permanent representation at the Security Council table. The message is unmistakable; your voices count only until they collide with the interests of the five.
The twin issues of exclusion and veto lead to a disturbing conclusion. When the votes of 188 nations can be nullified by one of five of the permanent seat members of the Security Council, and when leaders representing millions are denied even the right to speak, what is being communicated is that not all humanity is equal. The citizens of countries outside the permanent members are implicitly treated as less human, their voices less legitimate, and their interests expendable.
This is not a rhetorical exaggeration. In moments of planetary crisis, climate change, pandemics, and nuclear proliferation, the decisions of the few carry consequences for all. Yet billions find themselves disenfranchised at the global level. The irony is bitter; at a time when democracy is championed as the universal political ideal, the world’s foremost international institution operates on principles that would be considered unacceptable in any democratic society.
The UN Charter famously begins with the words “We the Peoples.” But eighty years on, those words ring hollow. What we have is not the voice of the peoples but the dominance of a few states. The General Assembly, where every nation has one vote, is often celebrated as the democratic heart of the UN. Yet its resolutions are non-binding, symbolic gestures that can be ignored at will. Real power lies in the Security Council, where democracy ends and hierarchy reigns.
Even the General Assembly itself is compromised by the politics of attendance. If the host nation can deny entry to certain leaders, then the “parliament of humanity” becomes little more than a managed show. It is a bitter irony that the world’s only universal gathering of states can be reduced to a selective club meeting.
The need for reform has long been acknowledged, but progress remains elusive. Proposals to expand the Security Council, abolish the veto, or relocate the UN headquarters have been discussed for decades. None has gained serious traction, precisely because any reform requires the consent of the very powers who benefit from the status quo. The foxes will not redesign the henhouse.
Yet the urgency of reform has never been greater. Climate change is a test of collective action that will not wait for diplomatic games. Pandemics spread without regard to veto politics. Wars and refugee crises demand global solidarity, not selective interventions. If the UN continues to function as a stage for great power rivalry, it risks irrelevance in the very moments it is most needed.
We are confronted with the urgent need to strip the host nation of unilateral power over attendance by creating a binding international protocol that guarantees entry for accredited leaders. History shows that we cannot even campaign for voluntary restraint of the veto, as some nations have suggested in cases of mass atrocities. At the end, the deeper question is whether humanity can continue to tolerate a system that enshrines permanent inequality.
The UN was born from the ruins of global war, animated by the hope that humanity could govern itself with justice and equality. Eight decades later, that hope remains unfulfilled. Instead, we see hypocrisy, the rhetoric of equality alongside the reality of hierarchy, the promise of inclusion alongside the practice of exclusion.
The denial of entry to Colombian and Palestinian leaders may seem a procedural issue, but it is emblematic of something larger. It shows how fragile the notion of universality really is, how quickly principles give way to politics. Combined with the veto system, it reminds us that the UN is not the parliament of humanity but the preserve of the few.
If the UN is to remain relevant, it must confront this hypocrisy head-on. It must reform itself, even against the inertia of the powerful. Otherwise, it will become what many already suspect it to be; a theatre where lofty speeches mask the fact that global democracy has never truly existed.
Eighty years on, the question is unavoidable; do we still believe in “We the Peoples,” or have we resigned ourselves to “We the Powerful”? Until the answer changes, the UN will remain not a symbol of humanity’s common voice, but of its silenced majority.
Dr. EK Gwuru writes from Nkolo Ikembe.
