During the United Nations Association UK Conference in London on 12 April 2025, David Cheesman and Anita Punwani delivered a presentation which explained that global governance is currently at risk because the United Nations is totally ineffective in resolving world problems. This has led to issues with Human Rights, to Environmental Crises including the current Climate Crisis, to Social Injustice issues, to Inequality both within and between nations and to mass migrations leading to Modern Slavery and Conflict

The United Nations Security Council should be resolving these problems but it fails, mainly because of the use of the veto by the five permanent members of the Council: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States.

Cheesman and Punwani reviewed the issues with the Security Council and explained the root of the problem is that to change the rules under which the Council acts, called the Charter, is extremely difficult.
They described several previous attempts to constrain the use of the veto without amending the Charter, none of which has succeeded so far.

They then described a new initiative which would fix the mis-use of the veto without changing the Charter. They call it the Accountable Veto Resolution Initiative (AVRI).

Below is a video of their presentation.

If you wish to send feedback to the presenters, please email AVRI@unacov.uk