UN Security Council must adapt to 70 years of change

Seventy years ago, the United Nations was founded "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war". As we look around the world today, the least we can say is that it is not fully succeeding in this mission. From Nigeria through the Middle East to Afghanistan and Ukraine, millions are dying from that scourge, or imminently threatened by it, and the UN seems powerless to save them.

We have four ideas for making it stronger and more effective. A big part of the problem is that the Security Council, which is supposed to maintain world peace and security on behalf of all member states, no longer commands respect - certainly not from armed insurgents operating across borders, and often not from the UN's own members.

Today, people wonder why the council is still dominated by the five powers that won the second world war - the ones more inclined to question its authority and the legitimacy of its decisions.

We ignore this threat at our peril. Times have changed since 1945, and the council must adapt. Almost everyone claims to favour expanding the Security Council, to include new permanent members, but for decades, states have been unable to agree who these should be, or whether, like the existing ones, they should have the power to veto agreements reached by fellow members.

Our first idea aims to break this stalemate. Instead of new permanent members, let us have a new category of members, serving a much longer term than the non-permanent ones, and eligible for immediate re-election. In other words, they would be permanent, provided they retained the confidence of other member states. Surely that is more democratic.

Secondly, we call on the five existing permanent members to give a solemn pledge to no longer allow their disagreements to mean that the council fails to act, even when - as currently in Syria - people are threatened with atrocious crimes.