What if the United Nations was disbanded next Friday? Salaam and thoughts
Assalamu alaikum - curious thought experiment: what would happen if the UN were dissolved next Friday?
Established about 80 years ago, the UN has become part of how many countries interact. Over the decades it’s helped with global health crises, shaped international law and diplomacy, coordinated humanitarian aid and peacekeeping, and tried to uphold an international order - for better or worse.
But it has many critics. Some say it often reflects Western interests more than those of the Global South. It’s been criticised for failing to stop mass atrocities in the 1990s and later, and for being sidelined during major conflicts where powerful states take the lead.
So, could the world manage without it? A number of experts shared what they think would follow if the UN were suddenly gone.
Refugees and humanitarian aid
If the UN disappeared, the immediate scramble would be huge. Many problems are transnational - take refugees: there are over 100 million refugees, displaced people and irregular migrants worldwide. No single state can handle that alone; it needs coordinated, cross-border responses.
Aid cuts already make food insecurity worse in camps and push people into cities where they face new pressures. Without UN coordination, standards for refugee protection would erode, and unilateral models would spread. Some refugees might reach wealthier countries, but many would become trapped in worsening conditions. Thousands of jobs in international aid and partner organisations would vanish almost overnight.
International law and accountability
International courts and law wouldn’t instantly disappear, but their influence would likely weaken. NGOs and national courts could still pursue accountability in some cases, and some cross-border legal work would continue. Yet enforcement would increasingly rely on states, corporations and civil society - a heavy and uneven burden.
Peacekeeping and legitimacy
When countries intervene without a multilateral mandate, it often looks like occupation rather than peacekeeping. The UN provides a form of legitimacy that many states and regions rely on. If that legitimacy crumbled, other powerful groups might step in, but their actions would be seen as the strong imposing their will on the weak. If we were designing a global body today, it would probably look very different from the 1945 model - but the need for some neutral forum would remain.
Global health
Take the WHO: without it, many low-income countries would lack the infrastructure to approve medicines and vaccines. Pandemic preparedness systems and global surveillance for viruses would be weakened, and vaccine equity efforts would suffer. The world would likely see more preventable suffering and deaths.
Aid architecture and perceptions
Institutions like the UN, WHO and donor agencies have huge reach and resources. Smaller NGOs do meaningful work but rarely match that scale. Still, big international aid has often been criticized for reinforcing a Global North narrative and colonial patterns. If the UN vanished, local and smaller groups might fill gaps, making aid more diverse, but also more fragmented and unstable.
Diplomacy and global norms
Abolishing the UN would accelerate a shift toward bilateral and regional arrangements and make global engagement more transactional. The UN’s framework currently offers a reference point for international law and moral pressure; without it, that limited leverage would fade and vulnerable people would suffer most.
Climate action
The UN remains the main global forum for negotiating climate agreements and support mechanisms for poorer countries. Without it, rich countries would be less likely to take on responsibility for helping developing nations adapt and transition, and climate efforts could be driven more by market forces than by equity.
Technical cooperation
Beyond high politics, the UN system includes many technical agencies that quietly keep global systems running - things like telecommunications standards, intellectual property norms, and other technical frameworks. Lose them and routine international interactions would face real disruption.
Conclusion
In short, even with many faults and failures, the UN and its related institutions provide structures that manage transnational problems, protect vulnerable people, and offer a forum for collective action. If they were disbanded, we’d likely rush to recreate similar mechanisms, but in the meantime the gap would bring real human suffering and instability. The bigger question is whether we can reform existing institutions to be fairer and more effective, rather than losing them entirely.
Wassalam.
https://www.aljazeera.com/feat