The United Nations Needs a Secretary-General of Courage, Not Convenience
GENEVA, March 30 (IPS) - The United Nations was not founded to be comfortable; it was founded to be necessary. Created in the aftermath of catastrophe, its purpose was clear: to maintain international peace and security, to uphold international law, to defend human rights and to promote human dignity and development.
The office of the Secretary-General was never intended to be merely administrative. It was intended to be moral, political and, when necessary, courageous.
As member states consider the appointment of the next Secretary-General, they face a decision that will shape not only the future of the United Nations, but also its credibility. The world today does not suffer from a surplus of institutions; it suffers from a shortage of trust in them.
The next Secretary-General must therefore be more than a careful manager of bureaucracy. The world needs a leader with vision, independence and integrity — a leader willing to uphold the Charter even when doing so is inconvenient to powerful member states.
Too often, the selection process produces a candidate who is acceptable to everyone precisely because they are unlikely to seriously challenge anyone. This may be politically expedient, but it is strategically short-sighted. An overly cautious Secretary-General may preserve short-term diplomatic comfort while presiding over long-term institutional decline.
The United Nations does not need a figure who simply reflects the balance of power within the Security Council; it needs a figure who reflects the principles of the Charter.
The next Secretary-General must be bold enough to articulate a clear vision for what the United Nations is for in the twenty-first century. That vision must be rooted in the organization’s founding objectives: preventing conflict, strengthening respect for international law, protecting human rights and promoting conditions under which peace is possible. These goals require not only administrative competence, but political courage and moral clarity.
Equally important, the next Secretary-General must be strong enough to maintain independence from the influence of any single member state or group of states. The United Nations does not exist to legitimize the actions of the powerful; it exists to ensure that power operates within rules.
The Secretary-General cannot fulfill this role if the office is perceived as operating at the beck and call of a few influential capitals. Independence is not a luxury in this role; it is the source of its authority.
With independence must come integrity. The United Nations possesses little in the way of traditional power: it does not command armies, it does not control vast financial resources and it cannot compel states to act. Its greatest asset is legitimacy — the belief that it stands for something larger than the interests of individual nations.
That legitimacy depends heavily on the personal credibility of the Secretary-General. Ethical leadership, transparency, accountability and consistency must once again become the defining characteristics of the office.
In this regard, the world would do well to remember Dag Hammarskjöld, who understood that the Secretary-General was not merely a secretary to governments, but a servant of the Charter and, ultimately, of the peoples of the world. He demonstrated that quiet diplomacy and moral courage are not opposites; they are partners.
He showed that the authority of the Secretary-General does not come from military or economic power, but from independence, integrity and a willingness to act when action is required.
Much attention is often given to the identity of the next Secretary-General — nationality, region, and increasingly gender. These questions are politically understandable, but they are not the most important questions. The defining question is not where the Secretary-General comes from, but what the Secretary-General stands for.
The United Nations is often described as an organization of states. But states exist to serve people, not the other way around. If that principle is true at the national level, it must also be true at the international level. The United Nations, therefore, does not ultimately belong to governments. It belongs to the peoples in whose name its Charter was written. Member states do not own the United Nations; they are trustees of it. And trustees are not meant to serve themselves, but those on whose behalf they hold responsibility.
This understanding should guide the selection of the next Secretary-General. The position requires someone who understands that the office is not merely administrative, but custodial — custodial of the Charter, of international law and of the trust that the world’s peoples place, however imperfectly, in the United Nations.
The selection process itself, however, raises a final and somewhat uncomfortable question. The Secretary-General is often described as the world’s top diplomat, and yet the world’s people have no direct voice in choosing this person.
The decision rests, as everyone knows, with a small number of states possessing veto power. This may be politically realistic, but it is increasingly difficult to explain to a global public that is more educated, more connected and more aware than at any time in history.
Perhaps, then, one day the world might experiment with something new — global consultations, or even worldwide elections — allowing the peoples of the world to express their preference for who should occupy this uniquely global office.
It is a slightly amusing idea, perhaps even an unrealistic one for now, but it contains a serious point: if the United Nations truly begins with “We the Peoples,” then their voice should be heard more clearly in choosing its leader.
Until that day comes, the responsibility rests with member states. They must choose not the safest candidate, not the most convenient candidate and not the candidate least likely to upset powerful governments. They must choose the candidate most likely to uphold the Charter, speak with independence, act with courage and restore integrity to the office.
The world does not need a careful manager.
The world needs a courageous Secretary-General.
Naïma Abdellaoui, UNOG – UNison Staff Representative, International Civil Servant since 2004.
IPS UN Bureau
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