The UN Charter was ratified in San Francisco in April 1945 by delegates including both America and its chief ideological adversary, the Soviet Union. Its creation followed the Bretton Woods conference the previous July, which had designed a new global economic system. Its headquarters are in Turtle Bay, New York. The Security Council has five permanent, veto-wielding members. It was expanded in the 1960s, and the Pact for the Future agreed by the General Assembly in September 2024 committed countries to a further expansion. The second secretary-general was Dag Hammarskjöld, who died in Congo in 1961. The system encompasses roughly 140 bodies. Tom Fletcher is the UN's humanitarian-affairs chief.
Hustings to replace secretary-general António Guterres in 2027 begin at the end of 2025. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the IAEA, is among those jockeying for the position.
In November 2024 the General Assembly adopted a resolution paving the way towards a global treaty on crimes against humanity, despite repeated attempts at derailment by Russia. The World Intellectual Property Organisation adopted two treaties in 2024-25 after decades of obstructionism.
The UN's core budget is $3.7bn. Core functions—including General Assembly meetings, peacekeeping and human-rights monitoring—are paid for through mandatory dues linked to the size of members' economies. Most other UN funding, such as for bodies providing humanitarian food or shelter, is voluntary. The UN cannot borrow.
America and China each contribute about 20% of the annual budget and both have become unreliable payers. America's payments have been habitually late since the 1980s. During Donald Trump's first administration, tardiness was compounded by America not paying in full. China has also begun paying late; in 2024 its money arrived on December 27th, four days before the end of the financial year. Only North Korea paid later.
In 2024 the UN had a $200m cash shortfall despite spending only 90% of its planned budget. Forty-one countries failed to pay $760m in mandatory contributions. In 2025 just 49 countries paid on time. Internal modelling suggested the year-end cash deficit would, without cuts, blow out to $1.1bn, leaving the UN unable to pay salaries and suppliers by September. Secretary-general António Guterres announced a previously unreported $600m (17%) cut in May 2025, including a hiring freeze.
The UN collects mandatory dues in the year it intends to spend them. Members are meant to send fees in January. UN rules require it to rebate unspent money to members to offset future fees—even those who did not pay their dues receive a credit. Late payers therefore not only force underspending in the current year but also rob the organisation of future funds. In 2026 the UN will have to refund $300m that arrived late in 2024, triple the 2025 rebate. The finance chief, Chandramouli Ramanathan, expected that in 2027 such rebates would jump to $600m, or 17% of the budget.
America's total arrears are about $3bn. Article 19 of the UN charter says that a country that skips two years' worth of payments (America's two-year limit is $4.5bn) will lose its vote in the General Assembly but not its veto on the Security Council.
Trump ordered officials to review America's participation in all international organisations, including the UN, with results due in mid-July 2025. In his second term he froze funding for international bodies and sought to abolish America's aid agency, USAID. The administration stopped funding UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and announced America would leave the Paris climate accords, the World Health Organisation, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council. It withdrew from discussions on future pandemic response, development-finance reform and high-seas protection, and objected to the Sustainable Development Goals as creeping world government.
The OECD projects that its members will cut aid by 9-17% in 2025, on top of a 9% cut in 2024. UN agency budgets have shrunk on average by about a third. In 2025 the UN received just 19% of the aid funds it requested.
If you didn't have to work so hard, you'd have more time to be depressed.