UN Charter Reform Coalition

Our Call

We call on United Nations Member States to invoke Article 109 of the UN Charter to call a general conference to review and update the Charter.

The world faces “a moment of historic danger”, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, with increasingly imminent risks – from nuclear war to a planetary emergency; from persistent poverty and widening inequality to the uncontained growth of artificial intelligence – threatening our very existence.

As the foundational text governing the major principles of international relations, and in particular peace and security, the UN Charter should provide a framework to manage these threats. But the Charter, created in the wake of the Second World War, is an outdated conceptual tool for the problems we face today. The failures to prevent or end the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan reflect the breakdown of our global security system. Global governance simply is not working.

Add to this the fact that only 50 countries were independent and present at the deliberations that led to the signing of the UN Charter between April and June 1945. At that time, most of Africa was colonized, while only four women participated in the deliberations.

The norms and rules shaping today’s multilateralism require a wholesale institutional review, through a much deeper process of dialogue and negotiations than current reform processes allow.

A General Review Conference of the UN Charter, as envisioned in the Charter itself, provides a way forward. Article 109 calls for a General Conference to be held if supported by two-thirds of the members of the General Assembly and any nine members of the Security Council.

The UN Charter was always meant to be a living document. The powers given to the permanent five members of the Security Council were controversial from the very inception of the United Nations. As a concession, the Charter’s drafters included provisions to amend the Charter at a later point in time.

In 1945, at the international conference in San Francisco where the UN Charter was adopted, then U.S. President Harry Truman said: “This Charter will be expanded and improved as time goes on. No one claims that it is now a final or a perfect instrument. It has not been poured into any fixed mold. Changing world conditions will require readjustments.”

The time for readjustment has come.

The UN Charter Reform Coalition mobilizes member states to invoke Article 109 of the UN Charter to call a general conference to review and update the Charter.

While this Coalition is pushing, as a first step, for a review conference along the timeline below, we support the call made by others, for Charter Review to be a regular, recurring process.

With governments having agreed at the Summit of the Future to a continued reform process as captured in the final version of the Pact of the Future, we propose the following roadmap:

March 2025

A total of 100 civil society organizations from all time zones have joined the campaign to advocate for UN Charter review.

From September 2025 to 2028

The UNCRC will leverage an expanded version of A Second United Nations Charter released in September of 2025 which will include several supporting Protocols (e.g., on disarmament), to work towards enlisting at least half a dozen UN members as “friends” of the campaign with the aim, over the period 2025-2028, to have the General Assembly and nine members of the Security Council approve a resolution calling for a General Review Conference, as called for in Article 109 of the Charter. A preparatory process includes consultations around the world.

2028-2030

Intergovernmental negotiations take place

2030

A new Charter is agreed as part of the post-Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda

2030 onwards

Efforts towards ratification continue

About the coalition

What We Do

The UN Charter Reform Coalition mobilizes member states and others to hold a general conference to review the UN Charter by:

Engaging member states: We raise awareness among governments about Article 109 (many are not aware of it!); build understanding to overcome concerns; identify and support member state champions, and leverage other opportunities to build support for Charter Review among member states.
Broadening the base: We attract new members to the coalition, both civil society organizations around the world and high-profile champions, and raise awareness among broader publics, particularly in P5 countries.
Setting the policy agency: We provide thought leadership on the topic of Charter Reform, convene relevant actors, speak at high-level policy events and publish in the media.

Our Structure

Since our informal launch in May 2024, we have evolved into a loosely organized structure that seeks to strike the balance between efficiency and inclusivity. Our coalition is composed of a Steering Committee, several sub-committees, and a general membership. Thus far, this is a completely volunteer-run movement.

The Steering Committee is made up of:

Heba Aly, Senior Advisor, Coalition for the UN We Need (Geneva)
Dan Perell, UN Representative, Baha’i International Community (New York)
Tim Murithi, Head of the Peacebuilding Interventions Programme, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (Cape Town)
Brenda Mofya, Head of New York Office, Oxfam International (New York)
Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director, Global Governance Forum

Several others dedicate time to the effort, including:

Natalia Nahra
Diana Chacón
Celina Negassa
Saul Kenny

Five sub-committees advance the work of the Coalition:

Advocacy and Outreach
Media and Communications
Research and Policy
Events and Convenings
Fundraising

If you are interested in supporting the work of a sub-committee, please write to:
UNCharterReformCoalition@outlook.com

The general membership consists of organisations and individuals that are aligned to our call and provide human, logistical or financial support where they can. We hold regular general membership meetings and update our members via our newsletter, for which you can sign up here.

Our Roots

The UN Charter Reform Coalition is one of 20 “ImPACT Coalitions” launched at the UN Civil Society Conference in Nairobi in May 2024, in the lead-up to the UN Summit of the Future held in New York in September 2024.

The ImPACT Coalitions began as self-organised groups that brought together civil society, member states, and the private sector to drive ambitions around the UN Summit of the Future and its outcome: the Pact for the Future. But some coalitions, like this one, have taken on a continued mission beyond the Summit itself.

The idea of UN Charter reform, particularly invoking Article 109 for a Review Conference of the UN Charter, has been supported for decades but has gained momentum in recent months in particular. The creation of a formal coalition to advance this objective has given further impulse to the movement.

Article 109

The powers given to the permanent five members of the Security Council were controversial from the very inception of the United Nations. As a concession, the Charter’s drafters included provisions to amend the Charter at a later point in time.

There are two main pathways to amend the UN Charter:

Article 108 allows for amendments to be made if adopted by a vote of a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly and ratified by all the permanent members of the Security Council.
Article 109 allows for a General Conference for the purpose of reviewing the Charter to be held if supported by two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and any nine members of the Security Council.

Article 109 goes so far as to state that if such a conference has not been held within the first decade of the UN’s creation, the proposal to call a conference will be placed on the agenda of the 10th session of the General Assembly. In other words, the original intent was that the Charter would be reviewed in its first 10 years.

In 1955, member states debated at the General Assembly whether to hold a review conference. A majority were in favour, but considered that such a conference should be held only at a time when the international atmosphere was favourable to a review of the Charter. A date and time were never fixed.

Since then, proposals to invoke either Article 108 or Article 109 have been made every single decade. But the only change to the Charter in nearly 80 years came into effect in 1965, after an Article 108 amendment,to expand the membership of the Security Council and Economic and Social Council. And the same justification for not reviewing the Charter – the need to wait for a more favourable time – is still used today, nearly 80 years later. (See section on Concerns about Charter Reform for our response to this argument).

Of note: While the five permanent members of the Security Council cannot veto the holding of the conference, any alteration of the Charter (recommended by a two-thirds vote of the conference) takes effect only when ratified by two thirds of the members of the UN, including all the permanent members of the Security Council.

Who Supports Reform?

Efforts to amend the Charter or convene a general conference to review the Charter are longstanding and proposals have been made multiple times over the years, as early as during the Charter’s adoption in 1945, and every decade thereafter.

In 2022, a High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, convened by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and co-chaired by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia, and Stefan Löfven, the former prime minister of Sweden, ultimately recommended the reform of the Security Council through use of Article 109: “The Summit of the Future is an opportunity to reaffirm our common commitment to the United Nations Charter and announce a Charter Review conference focused on Security Council reform.”

A call for UN Charter Reform, launched by the Global Governance Forum, is supported a number of former diplomats, heads of state, senior government officials and Nobel Laureates from around the world, including:

Danilo Turk, former President of Slovenia
Jose Maria Figueres, former President of Costa Rica
Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé, former President of Bolivia
Yves Leterme, former Prime Minister of Belgium
Yuan T. Lee, Nobel Chemistry Laureate 1986
Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate 1997
Mohammad Yunus, Chief Advisor and Premier Caretaker of the Interim Government of Bangladesh, Nobel Peace Laureate 2006
Gervais Rufyikiri, former Vice-President of Burundi
Ann Linde, former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden
Karen Longaric, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia
Andy Weber, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense
Tuiloma Neroni Slade, former Samoan Ambassador to the UN and former International Criminal Court judge
Adel Sherif, First Deputy Chief Justice, Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt
Francis Martin O’Donnell, former Irish Ambassador; former UN Resident Coordinator
Martin Kimani, former Kenyan Ambassador to the UN
Stephen Rapp, former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice
Sylvester Rowe, former Ambassador of Sierra Leone to UN
Krishna Rajan, former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs of India
Ronald MacLean-Abaroa, former Minister of Foreign Relations, Minister of Economy, Minister of Planning, and Minister of Sustainable Development of Bolivia
Marta Mauras, former Chilean Ambassador to the UN
Yasmin Sooka, Chair of Commission on Human Rights for South Sudan
Benjamin Odoki, former Chief Justice of Uganda
Douglas Roche, former Canadian Senator
Kofi Amoatey, former Member of Parliament and now Parliamentary Counsel, Ghana
Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate 2003
Jo Leinen, former Minister of Environment and Member of the European Parliament

See a full list of endorsements for a call to reform the UN Charter here.

In addition, the following organisations support the call for Charter Reform as members of the Coalition:

Concerns About Reforming the UN Charter

There are many very valid concerns about reforming the UN Charter. Below we address some of the most prominent.

1. Is this really realistic? And given how difficult the Summit of the Future negotiations have been on much less significant reforms, what makes you think it is even feasible to come to agreement on a new Charter?

Reforming the UN Charter was envisioned from the very inception of the UN. It is only recently that it has become taboo. Rather than being a ‘crazy’ or ‘unrealistic’ idea; it is, in fact, part of the original plan.

It won’t be easy – but it is highly likely that Charter Reform will take place at some point. We don’t know when the tipping point will arrive. But laying strong foundations for that moment now allows us to be ready when it comes.

2. Given the geopolitical mood, is this the right time to try to amend the Charter? Could we not end up with something worse?

No new Charter can be adopted unless it secures support from a majority of governments, as well as the permanent five members of the Security Council. Until such agreement exists, the current Charter stands. So there is a fail-safe mechanism against regression.

A general review conference would provide a moment and a timeline for change, but it does not reduce the need for dedicated negotiations on the actual proposals. Quite the opposite, it raises the stakes for those negotiations. However, these changes need not be agreed by unanimous consensus; a two-thirds majority is enough. Thus, a small number of States cannot block action that is clearly needed to address issues of global concern.

However, even if the process did carry risk, the world’s current trajectory carries higher risk – and is ultimately untenable.

There will never be a perfect or easy time to pursue UN Charter Reform. And it is often in times of crisis that reform is most possible. (You don’t buy a new car when your old car is working!). That said, the most monumental efforts to advance global coordination – the League of Nations and the United Nations – both came on the heels of world wars. The Coalition’s goal is to seed the conversation about the next iteration of global governance before catastrophe forces our collective hand. We need not wait for World War III to come up with a better system.

Besides, the Charter Reform process will take years. What we are calling for now is simply to start the process. The mood will have changed by the time a new Charter is adopted. If we wait for the ideal time to start the process, how can we guarantee that at the moment of the Conference itself the moment will still be ideal?

Finally, as below, the UN Charter Review process itself, if managed properly (including a broad-based inclusive consultation), can help improve the political mood.

3. Can’t the Security Council block the outcome of the conference?

Yes, any alteration of the Charter recommended by a two-thirds vote of the conference takes effect only when ratified by two thirds of the members of the UN, including all the permanent members of the Security Council.

However, if after a multi-year process, the vast majority of the world’s states have expressed their opinion about the kind of global governance the world needs, the cost of blockage by a handful of countries will rise. The lack of credibility of these actors could actually increase the case for UN Charter Reform.

The assumption is that any advances in global security cannot be made without the support of the major powers, but there are instances in which breakthroughs took place without P5 buy-in: the process that led to the landmine ban treaty is one such example. In addition, there are historical examples, as identified by Mahmoud Sharei in a 2015 PhD thesis, in which the use of the P5 veto was overturned. Historically, he writes, the two-step process for changes to the Charter to come into effect – first the adoption at the UN and then subsequently the ratification of Charter revisions in the national constitutional processes of the member states, with the time window of approximately two years in between – has demonstrated unexpected flexibility in the P5’s voting behavior.” His thesis points to three examples – the expansion of the Security Council in 1963, and the enlarged representation and membership of the UN Economic and Social Council in 1963 and 1971 – where P5 countries initially either abstained from or vetoed an amendment – but ultimately ratified it. “Once the issue had left the environs of the UN building in New York and returned to the national capitals and governments, the veto was in effect overruled by the citizens and the national legislatures of the P5 states that had wielded it in the first place.”

The hope is to encourage those countries that benefit most from the current inequality of the global order to see this as the surest path to true global security and prosperity which will benefit all. In addition, the P5 will be negatively affected if those states frustrated by the current system walk away from multilateralism and begin to make deals bilaterally instead.

Finally, the broad-based consultations at a review Conference would be useful in themselves. Even if the effort ultimately does not lead to a new Charter, having the conversation will itself lay the foundation for the transformation of multilateralism such that it can meet today’s challenges.

4. Even the Charter’s current provisions are not respected. Isn’t the problem politics, and not what’s in the Charter?

The lack of compliance with the UN Charter is a problem. However, we should separate the problem of politics from the utility of a Charter that is inclusive and reflective of the needs of humanity.

That said, the Charter’s inadequacy may itself be a cause of non-compliance, as Member States increasingly dismiss the legitimacy and credibility of an institutional architecture designed to suit the preferences of power brokers at the end of the Second World War.

Member States are likely to find that in exploring new arrangements, they will generate greater buy-in and, ultimately, more loyalty to the provisions of a reformed UN Charter. Indeed, several elements of Charter reform could improve and address the politics, such as addressing the inequalities that are baked into the Charter in terms of P5 privilege and strengthening accountability and enforcement.

Finally, legal norms do constrain behaviour, even when they are violated. Violations of international law, human rights, and crimes of aggression would be even worse if the UN Charter did not exist. However, non-compliance with the court orders of international judicial institutions suggests that a new Charter is required to enhance the prospects for compliance with international law.

5. The Charter can be reformed without a review conference. Wouldn’t more targeted “micro” reforms be more effective /strategic?

We need both. Narrow targeted reforms can be important vehicles for urgent changes that have sufficient political support. Where such low-hanging fruit exists, we should leverage those opportunities.

But piecemeal approaches to reform can only go so far and do not negate the need for a more holistic set of revisions that can address the broader mismatch at a conceptual level between the Charter’s provisions and the threats the world faces today.

Given the number of interrelated challenges facing today’s global governance systems, a wholesale review through a General Conference will ultimately be needed to create a coherent global governance system that is fit-for-purpose in addressing modern global challenges.