Professor Ray Murphy:

There is a General Assembly resolution, the uniting for peace resolution, which was invoked in 1956 and was successful. To my knowledge, the General Assembly, although not through the uniting for peace resolution, also approved an operation in Western New Guinea in 1964. Unfortunately, it is a little more complex than commentators sometimes say. The United Nations Security Council and General Assembly are both quite complex procedurally, so it has to be assumed there are challenges in that regard. The most significant challenge is to get the two-thirds majority, but it is not impossible. A country such as Ireland has that capacity as an interlocutor between the major powers and the so-called global south. We should be trying to affirm and strengthen that role, along with working closely with our European Union colleagues.

If we think about this, we can understand why states from the global south are cynical about the United Nations, and especially the practices of the major powers. All of them - China, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and France - often use the mechanism for their own self-interest and there are double standards in applying the principles of the UN Charter, international law and human rights principles. There is a great deal of cynicism. Nonetheless, multilateralism in the UN is the best thing that has ever happened to humanity and the global group of states. It is something we must work hard to retain, reinforce and strengthen. We have a real role in that.