Civil Society’s Reform Vision Gains Urgency as the USA Abandons UN Institutions

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Apr 2 2025 – Today’s multiple and connected crises – including conflicts, climate breakdown and democratic regression – are overwhelming the capabilities of the international institutions designed to address problems states can’t or won’t solve. Now US withdrawal from global bodies threatens to worsen a crisis in international cooperation.

The second Trump administration quickly announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO), terminated its cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council, walked out of negotiations on a global tax treaty and imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court officials.

Although the USA has sometimes been an obstructive force, including by repeatedly blocking Security Council resolutions on Israel, global institutions lose legitimacy when powerful states opt out. While all states are formally equal in the UN, the reality is that the USA’s decisions to participate or quit matter more than most because it’s a superpower whose actions have global implications. It’s also the biggest funder of UN institutions, even if it has a poor record in paying on time.

As it stands, the USA’s WHO withdrawal will take effect in January 2026, although the decision could face a legal challenge and Trump could rescind his decision if the WHO makes changes to his liking, since deal-making powered by threats and brinkmanship is how he does business. But if withdrawal happens, the WHO will be hard hit. The US government is the WHO’s biggest contributor, providing around 18 per cent of funding. That’s a huge gap to fill, and it’s likely the organisation will have to cut back its work. Progress towards a global pandemic treaty, under negotiation since 2021, may be hindered.

It’s possible philanthropic sources will step up their support, and other states may help fill the gap. The challenge comes if authoritarian states take advantage of the situation by increasing their contributions and expect greater influence in return. China, for example, may be poised to do so.

That’s what happened when the first Trump administration pulled out of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). China filled the vacuum by increasing its contributions to become UNESCO’s biggest annual funder. Presumably not coincidentally, a Chinese official became its deputy head, while China was able to block Taiwan’s attempts to join. It was out of concern about this growing influence that the Biden administration took the USA back into UNESCO in 2023; that decision could now be reversed, as Trump has claimed UNESCO is biased against the USA and ordered a review.

The Human Rights Council may be less immediately affected because the USA isn’t currently a member, its term having ended at the close of 2024. It rejoined in 2021 after Trump pulled out in 2018, and had already made the unusual decision not to seek a second term, likely because this would have provoked a backlash over its support for Israel. Apart from its relationship with Israel, however, during its term under the Biden administration the USA was largely recognised as playing a positive role in the Council’s business. If it refuses to cooperate, it deprives US citizens of a vital avenue of redress.

The USA’s actions may also inspire other states with extremist leaders to follow suit. Argentina’s President Milei, a keen Trump admirer, has imitated him by announcing his country’s departure from the WHO. Political leaders in Hungary and Italy have discussed doing the same. Israel followed the USA in declaring it wouldn’t engage with the Human Rights Council. For its own reasons, in February authoritarian Nicaragua also announced its withdrawal from the Council following a report critical of its appalling human rights record.

It could be argued that institutions like the Human Rights Council and UNESCO, having survived one Trump withdrawal, can endure a second. But these shocks come at a different time, when the UN system is already more fragile and damaged. Now the very idea of multilateralism and a rules-based international order is under attack, with transactional politics and hard-nosed national power calculations on the rise. Backroom deals resulting from power games are replacing processes with a degree of transparency aimed at achieving consensus. The space for civil society engagement and opportunities for leverage are in danger of shrinking accordingly.

Real reform needed

Revitalising the UN may seem a tall order when it’s under attack, but as CIVICUS’s 2025 State of Civil Society Report outlines, civil society has ideas about how to save the UN by putting people at its heart. The UNMute Civil Society initiative, backed by over 300 organisations and numerous states, makes five calls to improve civil society’s involvement: using digital technologies to broaden participation, bridging digital divides by focusing on connectivity for the most excluded, changing procedures and practices to ensure effective and meaningful participation, creating an annual civil society action day as an opportunity to assess progress on civil society participation and appointing a UN civil society envoy.

Each of these ideas is practical and could open up space for greater reforms. A UN civil society envoy could, for example, promote best practices in civil society participation across the UN and ensure a diverse range of civil society is involved in the UN’s work.

Civil society is also calling for competitive Human Rights Council elections, with a civil society role in scrutinising candidates, and limits on Security Council veto powers. And as time approaches to pick a new UN Secretary-General, civil society is mobilising the 1 for 8 billion campaign, pushing for an open, transparent, inclusive and merit-based selection process. The office has always been held by a man, and the call is for the UN to make history by appointing a feminist woman leader.

These would all offer small steps towards making the UN system more open, democratic and accountable. There’s nothing impossible or unimaginable about these ideas, and times of crisis create opportunities to experiment. States that want to reverse the tide of attacks on international cooperation and revitalise the UN should work with civil society to take them forward.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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