Everyone acknowledges the need for U.N. Security Council reform in theory. Unfortunately, they cannot agree on an one particular reform package. Once people see the details of a concrete proposal, losers and opponents always seem to outnumber winners and supporters. The urgency for reform is now extreme. The work of a high-level panel plus the dynamics of the international political environment have created a window of opportunity that, once closed, may not open again for some time. Hence the importance of seizing the moment and closing a deal.

As U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan noted when announcing his intention to set up the high-level panel last September, the United Nations is at a crossroads. When challenged to demonstrate its relevance, senior officials point to its uniqueness in being the locus of legitimate international authority. But its legitimacy is increasingly clouded as it becomes less and less representative of the international community, stuck rigidly in a time warp of 1945. And as its legitimacy erodes, its capacity to regulate the behavior of member states diminishes. This would become a still more debilitating weakness if the Security Council were to attempt to become more active and assertive: Those who no longer perceive the U.N. as an authentic voice of the international community would simply disregard its edicts.

For example, in Israeli eyes, the U.N. lacks legitimacy because of the history of obsessive and totally disproportionate focus on alleged Israeli sins, inability to assure Israeli security whenever the nation has been under threat, and failure to condemn atrocities by many other far more abusive regimes. And so, even when the World Court rightly judges the wall being built on occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal, the General Assembly's call for the court's verdict to be respected fails to sway Israeli opinion.