On the one hand, the United Nations remains indispensable for setting international standards and norms to regulate international behavior. The Philippines took its maritime territorial dispute to Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, which delivered its verdict July 12. The judgment was a comprehensive rejection of China's unilateral claims and a sharp rebuke of China's aggrandizing behavior. The court based its decision on the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The PCA is part of the U.N. system and so is UNCLOS. The tactic was thus a successful effort to use U.N. law and arbitration as instruments to redress power inequality in interstate disputes.
On the other hand, the ruling is unlikely to change the reality on the ground as the only enforcement option is via the U.N. Security Council, where China is a veto-wielding permanent member. Despite disagreements over the reasons for it — critics and supporters would likely differ on the weight of responsibility they assign to internal U.N. pathologies, the expectations-resources gap, and the prioritization of national interests at the cost of any international vision by member states — few would quarrel with the claim that the world organization has not fulfilled expectations and requirements.
Hence the urgency of reform.