Reform of the United Nations is back on the agenda after the UN Secretary-General announced a new initiative to make the UN “more effective, nimble and fit for today’s challenges”. But the UN80 initiative is largely seen as a cost-cutting exercise without a clear vision. And decades of negotiations on UN Security Council reform have not yet borne fruit.

The UN Charter Reform Coalition offers a renewed perspective on this long-standing issue. Reviving the original notion of the Charter as a document shaped by its historical context in the wake of World War 2 — and thus inherently subject to change — the Coalition advocates for comprehensive reform of the 1945 Charter, which is pre-escalation of the nuclear threat, pre-challenges imposed by digital transformation and pre-climate crisis. This reform aims to equip the UN to better address the pressing global challenges of today, challenges for which the current institutional framework is increasingly inadequate. On this basis, the Coalition calls for the invocation of Article 109 of the UN Charter to convene a General Conference to review the Charter, with a broad mandate and inclusive process.

This report compiles the contributions and discussions from the event "Rethinking the Foundations of the International Order: A Roundtable on Rewriting the United Nations Charter," held on June 25, on the occasion of a visit to Brazil by a delegation from the Coalition for the Reform of the UN Charter. The meeting aimed to explore possible pathways for building a new institutional architecture for the United Nations.