The annual United Nations General Assembly summit in New York has always been an opportunity for nations to gather, take stock of global affairs, and attempt to chart a course for the future. Yet year after year, one cannot escape the uncomfortable truth that the UN, both through its General Assembly and its Security Council, has consistently fallen short in playing an assertive role in conflict resolution. It has too often functioned as a platform of symbolic resolutions rather than a mechanism of genuine enforcement. This failure is nowhere more apparent than in the case of Azerbaijan, which for three decades lived under the occupation of its internationally recognised territories by Armenia despite the existence of four binding UN Security Council resolutions that demanded the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of Armenian armed forces. Those resolutions were ignored for nearly thirty years, and Azerbaijan’s people were forced to endure displacement, destruction, and cultural erasure. It was not the UN, but Azerbaijan’s own resolve that ultimately restored sovereignty.

The lesson drawn from that painful experience resonates today as the General Assembly prepares to convene with a heavy agenda dominated by conflicts that continue to devastate the international order. Foremost among them is the tragedy of Palestine, where the human cost is beyond words. Thousands of Gazans continue to suffer in conditions of famine and indiscriminate killing, while the world’s most powerful institutions seem paralysed. The inability of the UN Security Council to forge a consensus has left the General Assembly to act with largely symbolic proposals, and even then, divisions are stark. The degradation of human life, the destruction of basic dignity, and the mass killings seen in Gaza demand urgent, practical measures rather than rhetorical declarations.

In parallel, the war between Russia and Ukraine persists as another chapter in humanity’s grim record of unresolved disputes. Tens of thousands of lives have already been lost, and Europe has been destabilised in ways that will be felt for decades. Here too, the Security Council has proven paralysed, and the General Assembly has failed to exert meaningful influence beyond political statements. This........

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