Despite the recent crises in Syria and Ukraine, reforming UN Security Council decision-making remains a pipe dream

The ongoing weeping and gnashing of European and other teeth over Ukraine reflects the most serious East-West confrontation since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The inability of the United Nations to agree on concerted action in the face of the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight in July by Russian-backed rebels – like earlier paralysis before Russia’s February invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea – brings sharply back into relief an issue that was front-and-centre for the first 45 years of the world organisation’s history.

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS