This document introduces three companion protocols to A Second United Nations Charter: Modernizing the UN for a New Generation:

1. A New Way to Finance the United Nations;
2. Statement of Principles on Ensuring Inclusion of Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society, and Other Stakeholders in Consultation on Matters of Policy and Process at the United Nations;
3. On the Composition of the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.

In addition, it presents a Roadmap for collective security and disarmament, which will serve as the basis for two further protocols—one on a United Nations Peace Force and the other on comprehensive disarmament—to be disseminated during 2026. While presently less developed than the three protocols included here, the Roadmap is integral to the project. Issues of peace, security, and disarmament cannot be separated from the institutional reforms outlined in the Second UN Charter; they are part of the same transformational agenda, essential to building a safer and more legitimate system of global governance.

We are acutely aware that ours is a time of deep skepticism—sometimes cynicism—about international cooperation, multilateralism, and especially about the United Nations’ capacity for meaningful reform. Calls for global disarmament or stronger collective security mechanisms are often met with dismissive claims of utopianism. But that skepticism, though understandable, cannot be our compass. Given the current unraveling of the global order, we believe it is dangerously complacent to wait until catastrophe—perhaps a third world war—forces change upon us. By then, it may be too late. Reforming the global system is not a luxury for calmer times; it is a precondition for preventing collapse in the storm that is already upon us.

A transformational agenda

The protocols and the Roadmap are not add-ons but part and parcel of the broader vision of the Second United Nations Charter. They embody the same spirit of innovation and hope, grounded in the conviction that the international community is capable of renewing its common institutions. The reforms proposed here are ambitious but realistic, conceived as the next stage in the long historical process of adapting global governance to new challenges.

History shows that bold institutional change is possible. In 1945, the UN Charter itself was a daring innovation, emerging from the collapse of the League of Nations and the devastation of world war. It established principles and norms—such as the universality of membership and the recognition of human rights—that shaped international cooperation for decades to come. The UN oversaw decolonization, expanded development cooperation, and prevented the recurrence of global war, achievements that testify to the resilience of the multilateral project.

Yet the limitations of the existing system have become alarmingly evident. Peace and security mechanisms that fail to prevent major wars, including those which daily threaten to explode into nuclear conflicts. Human rights norms that are rapidly being eroded by a rising sense of impunity among leaders. Poverty and inequality that persist, and recent progress on climate change that is now threatened with reversal. Behind all of this, the Organization is struggling to adapt to the scale and speed of today’s global challenges. Eighty years on, the Charter shows its age: it is, as often noted, pre-nuclear, pre-climate, and pre-digital.

Renewal for a new century

The Second United Nations Charter responds to this reality. It reflects years of dialogue and draws on both contemporary reports—such as Our Common Agenda (2021) and A New Agenda for Peace (2023)—and the long tradition of proposals for UN reform stretching back to the Organization’s earliest years.

Its structural reforms are substantial: a more representative Security Council; a nascent Parliamentary Assembly; an Earth System Council; clearer authority for the General Assembly; a new process for the selection of the Secretary-General; the fulfilment of the promise of compulsory jurisdiction by the International Court of Justice (developed more fully in a companion Revised Statute of the International Court of Justice); and a pathway toward a standing UN peace force and disarmament regime. The companion protocols complement this vision by addressing specific areas where reform can advance more quickly: financing, civil society engagement, and parliamentary representation. Meanwhile, the Roadmap on peace, security and disarmament acknowledges the complexity of these issues but insists that they cannot be deferred indefinitely. It sets the stage for fully developed protocols in 2026 by sketching a phased, interrelated approach to preventive diplomacy, peace operations, arms control, and disarmament—bridging today’s impasse with tomorrow’s more stable order.

In developing these proposals, care was taken not only to respond to today’s geopolitical fault lines, but also to design mechanisms that could plausibly attract support within the current international landscape. For example, with a view to promoting greater democracy and accountability in the Security Council, the reforms outline a feasible formula for expanded membership capable of gaining backing across regional and ideological lines. To address the dysfunction of the permanent veto, the project does not propose outright abolition—an action almost certain to provoke withdrawal by the most powerful states. Instead, it advances a novel override mechanism empowering both the General Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly. The wager is that permanent members will prefer to remain engaged in a system where their veto can be challenged democratically, rather than risk isolation or irrelevance. 

Equally, the proposals acknowledge that national sovereignty remains deeply embedded in the international system. The reforms do not envisage unlimited legislative power for the UN. Rather, they contain a very limited provision empowering the General Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly to adopt binding international law under strict conditions and oversight in cases of existential threat to human survival. 

An integrated whole

While each Chapter of the Second Charter and each subsequent protocol and roadmap stands on its own in many ways, our project is also intended to present an integrated approach to United Nations reform.  To take only a couple of examples: As the introduction to the Protocol on the Composition of the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly further elaborates, bringing citizen-linked parliamentary politics into the United Nations will dispose citizens and their organizations to invest in the United Nations and its outcomes, strengthening the organization’s ability to be effective across diverse areas of global challenge. Likewise, the democratization of the Security Council and the potential for veto to be overridden by the General Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly will keep the Council small enough to be manageable while grounding all aspects of collective security on a more legitimate basis of authority. 

Technology as a cross-cutting theme

One recurring theme throughout the drafting process has been the role of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. Unlike other areas, technology has not been given its own protocol. This is deliberate. The very pace of change in this field is such that a stand-alone protocol would risk being obsolete almost on arrival. What seems like a cutting-edge recommendation today could appear inadequate—or even misguided—within a year.

This distinguishes technology from areas like disarmament, where we already know the principles and priorities that must guide the process, and where these are unlikely to change significantly in the near future. With AI and other rapidly evolving technologies, by contrast, humility and adaptability are required.

Rather than treating technology as a discrete subject, therefore, the Charter and protocols weave it into every domain of UN activity: human rights, development, disarmament, peace and security, environmental protection, and even the Organization’s internal procedures and staffing. To have addressed it separately would risk trivializing its pervasive influence, much as if the League of Nations had drafted a protocol on the steam engine. At the same time, the ethical issues raised—equity, bias, privacy, and the conditions for a just transition—will require continuing and focused attention in specialized forums.

Peace, security, and disarmament

A central pillar of the project remains unfinished: the comprehensive framework for peace, security, and disarmament. The Roadmap presented here is intended as a bridge—conceptual and practical—between the current state of deadlock and a more effective global system. It connects long-standing proposals for a standing UN peace force (already envisaged in 1945 but never implemented) with a phased approach to disarmament covering nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons, as well as newer domains such as outer space and autonomous weapons.

Unlike technology, where recommendations risk becoming outdated almost as soon as they are drafted, the principles of disarmament are stable and enduring. The urgency of reducing weapons of mass destruction, curbing arms races, and addressing the humanitarian impact of small arms, landmines, and new classes of weapons is as clear today as it was decades ago. The challenge lies not in defining the principles but in building the political will and institutional architecture to implement them.

The experience of the past eighty years demonstrates both the resilience of multilateralism and the need for its renewal.

The Roadmap is not a substitute for detailed protocols, but rather a structured pathway toward them, integrated with the institutional reforms of the Second UN Charter and aligned with the urgent need for progress on the most intractable problems of global security. It aims to provide a phased plan, with benchmarks that relate across different domains, and connect these to the broader institutional restructuring already envisioned.

A work in progress, a source of hope

Taken together, the Second United Nations Charter, its three companion protocols, and the Roadmap for peace, security, and disarmament are presented as a conversation-starter and a work in progress. They are an invitation to governments, parliaments, civil society, and citizens—especially youth—to engage in shaping the future of global governance. Disagreement is expected and welcome; proposals can and should be refined.

The underlying message, however, is one of cautious hope. The experience of the past eighty years demonstrates both the resilience of multilateralism and the need for its renewal. Understandably, many diplomats approach questions of UN reform with caution, mindful of the political difficulties and the sensitivities of major powers. But excessive caution risks becoming its own form of inertia, while the challenges confronting humanity—climate change, pandemics, disruptive technologies, widening inequality—are advancing on timelines that will not adjust to diplomatic hesitations.

Recognizing the obstacles without being immobilized by them is therefore essential. By combining structural reform with pragmatic pathways in peace, security, and disarmament, this project demonstrates that constructive ideas are within reach. The Second UN Charter and its protocols show that renewal of the United Nations is not a utopian dream but a practical necessity. None of this is easy; transformational reform never is. But the alternatives—drift, decay, and eventual disaster—are far more costly. And unlike in past eras, the consequences of systemic failure today may well be irreversible.

The invitation to participate in this necessary transformation is open to all. But it falls with particular urgency on progressive mid-level and smaller powers—those who historically have often championed reforms to the global system. In today’s multipolar and fragmented world, responsibility must be more widely shared and leadership more democratic. Only by acting collectively—and with courage—can we usher in a new era of global governance that is both fit for purpose and equal to the challenges of our time.