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| Author: | Carin Zissis |
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January 5, 2007
As the UN transitions from the leadership of one secretary-general to another, Ghana’s Kofi A. Annan has been feted for his commitment to human rights and UN reform. However, a tumultuous relationship with the United States over the Iraq War and the oil-for-food scandal also marred his tenure. While a candidate for the post, South Korea’s former foreign minister Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations “needs to be reenergized to live up to the growing expectations of the international community.” Now he hopes to put those words into practice and further define a post that still lacks a job description.
At the time the United Nations was established in 1945, the UN Charter described the secretary-general broadly as the “chief administrative officer.” Beyond that, the type of leader needed, how to select the candidate, and the person’s length of tenure were left open to interpretation, explains Brian Urquhart, former undersecretary-general, in an article for Foreign Affairs. In the book Secretary or General?, Simon Chesterman and Thomas M. Franck note that the person in the post is sometimes treated as “an errand boy and punching bag,” expected to be at once an independent political force and a UN servant.
Despite the broad and vague requirements of the job, some informal norms are observed in appointments for the post. Secretary-generals usually come from countries considered small- to medium-sized neutral powers, are career diplomats, and serve no more than two five-year terms. Regional rotation also is observed, with nationals of the five permanent members of the Security Council—the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom—ineligible.
Yes. Despite the open-ended nature of his job description, the position calls for less of a clerk than did the role of director of the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor. Article 99 of the UN Charter says the secretary-general “may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.” This provision allows a secretary-general to choose between playing an activist role, as in the tradition of Dag Hammerskjöld or more of a bureaucratic role, as did Kurt Waldheim, explains Stephen Schlesinger, UN expert and former director of the World Policy Institute. Schlesinger says the job can serve as a “perch” used “to rally world public opinion around issues that wouldn’t necessarily have been addressed otherwise.”
The Security Council recommends a candidate for the General Assembly’s 192 members to appoint. Although all UN members get a voice in the secretary-general’s selection, the five permanent members of the Security Council hold sway as any one of them can eliminate a nominee with a veto. China vetoed a third term for the UN’s fourth secretary-general, Austria’s Kurt Waldheim, while the United States vetoed a second term for the fifth, Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Although the ten elected members of the Security Council, who serve two-year terms, do not have the same veto power, their votes can prove crucial as a candidate needs at least nine votes to be recommended as secretary-general.
Critics of the appointment process say it historically lacked transparency and fell prey to cronyism due to the permanent members’ veto power and negotiations over secret candidates. The selection of Ban Ki-moon was possibly the most open, with the Security Council announcing formal candidates. Still, Ban was the favored choice of China, demonstrating the importance of the permanent members in shaping UN policy through the secretary-general selection process.
Although the secretary-general occupies an appointed rather than an elected position, the Security Council’s five permanent members serve as his constituents. In working with the Council, the secretary-general must also represent the interests of underrepresented states, balancing the demands of the Security Council with those of General Assembly members. Critics say the secretary-general has been too beholden to the Security Council, particularly the United States.
With the United States serving as the UN’s largest funder, accounting for more than 20 percent of the UN budget, “no secretary-general can afford to alienate the United States if they want to have success in the job,” says Schlesinger. The United States’ position as both founder and host to the United Nations has at times complicated Washington’s relationship with the UN leader. During Annan’s second term, which coincided with the Bush administration coming to power, the relationship grew contentious: Annan called the U.S. deployment of troops in Iraq “illegal,” angering the White House even as some UN members criticized him for failing to take an even stronger stand.
When Annan’s troubles reached their height because of condemnation coming from the United States as well as the oil-for-food scandal, Annan said in December 2004 that he was happy the “annus horribilis” was almost over. Eventually, as the White House’s Iraq policy foundered, the U.S.-UN relationship was renewed. Schlesinger says this proved that a country going to war needs the UN’s backing: “You can’t willy-nilly dismiss the United Nations.”
Although each secretary-general interprets his role differently, Annan’s legacy strengthened the post’s role as a force for moral leadership, says Ayca Ariyoruk, senior associate of the United Nations Association of the U.S.A., an organization that promotes U.S. involvement in the United Nations. “He developed a moral voice for the secretary-general for what was right what was wrong internationally.” But Annan has also been accused of failing to serve as a credible moral compass, given the oil-for-food scandal and the United Nations’ inability to stop humanitarian crises such as genocide in Darfur. A Wall Street Journal editorial said at the beginning of Annan’s term “it was at least plausible to believe that a properly reformed UN could serve the purposes it was originally meant to serve: to be a guarantor of collective security and a moral compass in global affairs. Mr. Annan's legacy is that nobody can entertain those hopes today.”
How the UN leader’s role as global spokesman will carry over to future secretary-generals remains to be seen. As CFR Senior Fellow Lee Feinstein explains, the White House supported Ban’s nomination for the job because they say him as a bureaucrat rather than an activist. “This administration wanted an implementer, not a speechifier.” However, Annan had also been a first choice for Washington. As Feinstein notes, “A secretary-general is like a Supreme Court justice—you never know what you're going to get.”
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