The United Nations: Still Indispensable in an Age of Circumvention

International Relations

By Vijay Makhan

The 81st General Assembly was a reminder that the world still needs the United Nations — and that its universality must not become hostage to the convenience of the powerful.

Each September, New York hosts what is too readily dismissed as a political jamboree. Presidents, prime ministers and ministers take the podium. Solemn declarations are made, familiar divisions are rehearsed, and the headlines soon move elsewhere. Yet the opening of the 81st General Assembly offered a more sobering lesson. For all its infirmities, the UN remains the one place where leaders who may be estranged, hostile or even at war can nevertheless come within diplomatic reach of one another.

That is why the growing tendency to circumvent this premier world organisation should concern us. Some of the week’s more consequential exchanges were conducted elsewhere — in bilateral meetings, through intermediaries, or within selective groupings fashioned by the most powerful. The United States and China discussed artificial intelligence and strategic competition in Washington. Contacts concerning Iran proceeded through mediators. On Gaza, practical arrangements were explored outside the UN’s established machinery. The Organisation supplied the setting and some measure of legitimacy; decisive influence was frequently exercised beyond its formal structures.

This is not to suggest that bilateral diplomacy is illegitimate. It is often necessary, sometimes indispensable. Nor should the UN be romanticised. Its Security Council has repeatedly been paralysed by rivalry and veto; its financial condition has been weakened by arrears; and its resolutions, however well intentioned, cannot substitute for political will. But to bypass it is to diminish the only universal forum in which states, whatever their power, possess an equal voice and where international law may still provide a measure of protection against sheer force.

The treatment of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and reportedly of Sudan’s General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, illustrates an even more troubling problem. Both were denied entry visas by the host country. Remote participation was arranged for President Abbas, and the General Assembly rightly acted to preserve Palestine’s opportunity to be heard. But speaking through a screen is not the same as being present. A leader unable to enter New York cannot conduct bilateral consultations or participate fully in the diplomacy that makes the annual session consequential.

The issue is larger than the identity or policies of any individual concerned. A premier intergovernmental organisation, whose purpose is to bring together its members irrespective of their differences — and indeed despite the fact that some may be at war — should not be subjected to the whims or desiderata of the country in which it is headquartered. The UN Headquarters Agreement was meant to ensure that the forum would not become an extension of the host state’s bilateral preferences. When access can be withheld selectively, universality becomes conditional. The loss is not only symbolic. A leader absent from New York is deprived of the informal diplomacy which is often the real substance of a high-level session.

There was, however, another side to the week — one that should not be overlooked, particularly in Mauritius. The General Assembly adopted by consensus its first common Declaration on Sea-Level Rise. Its affirmation that maritime zones established under the Law of the Sea should remain stable notwithstanding sea-level rise is a signal achievement for Small Island Developing States. It also reaffirmed the continuity of statehood and UN membership of affected countries and called for more accessible and predictable adaptation finance.

For island states, this is no abstract legal refinement. The sea is not merely the horizon around us; it is a domain of rights, resources, security and survival. Mauritius, with its extensive maritime jurisdiction, has a direct interest in the stability of its ocean entitlements. The declaration does not solve the climate crisis, nor does it automatically secure the finance that vulnerable states require. But it demonstrates that persistent, coordinated diplomacy can turn existential concern into an emerging international norm.

That achievement carries an important political lesson. Small states are not condemned to be spectators. They are most effective when they organise around principles, build coalitions and insist that the law serve practical purposes. Their collective agency is not a substitute for the responsibility of major powers; it is, however, the means by which they can ensure that their interests are neither ignored nor traded away in larger bargains.

Mauritius has every reason to draw that lesson from its own experience. Chagos remains a sharp reminder that legal principle may be acknowledged while implementation is delayed by geopolitical calculation. The international record on decolonisation is clear. Yet the practical completion of the agreed settlement is again being influenced by the views of a third power. This underscores why universal rules and multilateral institutions must retain their authority. Not because they are perfect, but because the alternative is a world in which the strong decide when law is to be honoured and when it can be set aside.

The United Nations did not end the wars in the Middle East, resolve the rivalry between Washington and Beijing, or devise a global regime for artificial intelligence. Nor was it able to prevent the host-country restrictions, which diminished the quality of representation at its own annual gathering. But it provided a space in which channels on Iran could be reopened, gave small island states a genuine legal and political gain, and allowed the wider world to witness both the promise and the deficiencies of the present international order.

The task, therefore, is not to defend the UN uncritically. It is to restore its universality, defend its independence from host-country pressure, and make it more responsive to those who depend most upon a rules-based order.

For Mauritius and other small states, multilateralism is not a ceremonial attachment, to be invoked only when convenient. It remains an essential instrument of sovereignty, survival and dignity.

30 September 2026

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 2 October 2026