UN diplomats are considering what to do in the event that no agreement can be reached on a new leader for the 80-year-old organisation, including the possibility of leaving the post temporarily vacant.
At a time of deep discord and global upheaval, concern is growing among diplomats that it may be impossible to choose a replacement for António Guterres, the UN secretary general, whose term ends in December.
The secretary general is chosen by the UN security council, and the five permanent members – US, China, Russia, France and the UK – have to be in agreement. The search for a candidate is unfolding at a challenging moment for the UN. The US, its biggest funder, is cutting back, and there are serious questions about the survival of the multilateral system the UN was established to protect.
The White House announced last week it was pulling out of 66 international bodies, about half of which are affiliated with the UN. With about 60 wars raging across the world – the highest number since the second world war – the UN’s role peacekeeping role is also in question.
“The reality is that for the last few years the UN has been in a bit of a death spiral,” said Richard Gowan, programme director for global issues and institutions at the International Crisis Group.
“You need a leader to come in who is probably going to have to oversee even more severe cuts and mergers of UN entities and is also going to have to convince big powers, small powers alike that this organisation still matters.”
Governments are due to begin submitting letters nominating candidates. The successful applicant must draw broad support from member states before facing the security council, where any of the five permanent members can veto the choice. US president Donald Trump’s return to office has upended assumptions that the next secretary general would be a woman from Latin America. The top post is traditionally rotated among geographical regions and a 1997 resolution called for consideration for gender equality, although all UN chiefs to date have been men. Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile and UN high commissioner for human rights, was considered a strong candidate before Trump retook office. But Trump’s aversion to initiatives to hire more women and minorities in government may undermine her chances.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
Argentinian diplomat Rafael Grossi has been campaigning for the role. As director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he oversees inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities as well as the safety of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. His success may hinge on continuing to manage those complex issues without alienating any of the veto powers. Other candidates are Rebeca Gryspan from Costa Rica, who was one of the architects of the Black Sea grain deal, and Alicia Bárcena, a Mexican biologist and the country’s secretary of environment and natural resources.
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“How do you get a candidate that can avoid being vetoed by [Vladimir] Putin, Trump or Xi [Jinping], find ways to work with them and have the respect of a wider world that is generally wanting more constraints on superpower action?” said Jane Kinninmont, the head of the UN Association UK.
The next UN secretary general will serve a five-year term starting in January 2027, with the possibility of renewing once.
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If the five powers are unable to agree, Guterres could stay on, or his deputy could take over. The danger is that a compromise candidate could lack the qualities necessary to steer the organisation through a challenging time. “If you get some very bland bureaucrat who is inoffensive to everyone but basically just keeps on trying to manage decline, the UN is not going to disappear off the face of the earth but it’s going to get more and more marginal to international politics,” Gowan said.
The Trump administration’s bid to dominate the western hemisphere has unleashed geopolitical shockwaves that could pit the US against Europe over Greenland. Russia and European powers are in conflict over Ukraine, while China is viewed as a rising threat to the US and Europe.
“If we look back in history, it’s been exactly at the times when the security council has been most divided …, when it’s been deadlocked, when there’s different kinds of competing world orders that seem to be emerging that the UN has proven most useful,” said Thant Myint-U, author of the book Peacemaker. His grandfather, U Thant, a Burmese diplomat, was appointed secretary general at the height of the cold war, when there were serious doubts that the Soviet Union and the US would be able to agree on a candidate. He went on to play a key role in mediating an end to the Cuban missile crisis.
The organisation should focus on its core missions to end war as a tool of international relations and protect the postwar order of state sovereignty, Myint-U said. “The new secretary general has to think very carefully about how to intervene in one or more of the existing big conflicts to prove the UN’s usefulness as a way of ensuring that he or she can also be there as the mediator of last resort if we do move to a much more dangerous situation.”
Photograph by Peter Macdiarmid/POOL/AFP via Getty Images, Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images