Abstract
My thesis depicts an evolving role for the United Nations in conflict resolution. Instead of being directly involved and passing resolutions or openly mediating between the opposing sides to resolve the dispute, the United Nations has utilized political pressure to influence both parties to the negotiation table. I argue that tensions between the permanent members — especially in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine — have caused this, as the UN passed had the lowest percentage of meetings with a resolution since the height of the Cold War in 2023. In my thesis, I describe the UN’s current role in dispute settlement through the lens of three conflicts: the Russia-Ukraine War, the 2023 Niger crisis, and the Nagorno-Karabakh war, which ended in September 2023. Through each case, I show the strengths and weaknesses of the UN’s approach to dispute settlement in a new era of UNSC gridlock, finding that while political pressure can be successful and ease tensions, it can be a slow-moving process and often fails to resolve the underlying issues behind the dispute.