Reviewing the UN Charter: Diplomatic Groundwork Should Begin

Credit: metamorworks / ShutterstockOpinion by Jordan RyanTuesday, November 03, 2026Inter Press Service Article 109 of the UN Charter provides a mechanism for reviewing the Charter itself. It allows a General Conference of all UN members to be convened by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and a vote of any nine members of the Security Council. As the Article provides, “Each Member of the United Nations shall have one vote in the conference.” Even if the prospect of amending the Charter is bleak, a review conference could matter. It would give the wider membership a formal forum to set out the changes it seeks and put the five permanent members of the Security Council under public pressure to respond. That political value is reason enough for member states to begin the diplomatic groundwork, despite the formidable obstacles.Paragraph 3 of Article 109 set a separate, lower threshold for consideration at the General Assembly’s tenth session. If no conference had been held before then, the proposal to call one was to be placed on the Assembly’s agenda, and the conference was to be held if a majority of Assembly members and any seven Security Council members so decided. Acting un...