The Future of the UN Security Council: A 'San Francisco Moment'?

International Organizations (IOs) face significant challenges amidst a shifting international order, threatening their ability to function. This paper investigates how the UN addresses these existential threats, particularly concerns about the Security Council's (SC) diminished crisis management capabilities, and explores the potential for a 'San Francisco moment' – a structural response to these challenges.

The analysis draws on three primary theoretical approaches: institutional theory, focusing on UN survival strategies such as avoiding dissolution or capacity reduction; Principal-Agent theory, examining delegated authority from the General Assembly (GA) to the SC for international peace and security (the Veto Initiative case study) and from the SC to the African Union for peacekeeping (AU-led Peace Support Operations case study); and IOs self-legitimation, which explores behavioral responses as mechanisms for institutional self-legitimation, rather than discursive strategies.

The study aims to understand the strategies employed by the GA and SC as collective bodies to assert and uphold their claims of legitimacy in maintaining global peace and security. The primary internal audience for this legitimation is identified as the members of the SC. While other audiences exist, this paper concentrates on the SC's internal legitimation practices.

Inter-organizational relations theory is also considered, specifically in the context of the SC functioning as a principal, as exemplified by Resolution 2719 (2023) regarding the financing of AU-led Peace Support Operations.