UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Ponders Term Limits For Secretary-General

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations is seeking a new Secretary-General who will be least vulnerable to political manipulation by member-states.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, who ends his five-year term as secretary-general in December, is eligible for re-election but has refused to say whether he will again throw his hat in the ring.

In any event, observers complain that politics plays too big a part in the selection of a U.N. head.

“Politics leads to the lowest common denominator,” in the selection of the Secretary-General, said Bill Pace of the U.S.- based World Federalist Movement which follows U.N. affairs.

Pace told IPS the problem is not whether the Secretary-General should serve five or seven years, rather it is “the lack of transparency in the selection of the Secretary-General.” The candidate selected is not necessarily “the most qualified” but is usually “the least objectionable”, he said.

Still, others argue for the imposition of term limits.

“The only way to ensure that the Secretary-General is apolitical is to bar him from running a second time, ” one diplomat told IPS Friday.

The process of selecting a new Secretary-General is under scrutiny in the context of a moves to restructure the financially ailing world body. A 185-member U.N. Working Group on the Strengthening of the U.N. System will next month discuss proposed changes, including selection of the next U.N. head.

In a 28-page summary of the various proposals for U.N. reforms, the Working Group says that at least two organisations — the New York-based U.N. Association of USA (UNA-USA) and the Geneva-based Commission on Global Governance — have supported a single, seven- year term for the Secretary-General.

The Secretary-General would have more independence with a single term, argues Edward Luck, formerly of UNA-USA. “Right now, the member-states like having the control.”

The last five Secretaries-General have all served more than five years: Trygve Lie of Norway held office from 1946 to 1953; Dag Hammarskjod of Sweden served from 1953 until his death in a plane crash in Africa in 1961; U. Thant of Burma held office from 1961 to 1971; Kurt Waldheim of Austria served 1972 to 1981; and Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru served from 1982 to 1991.

Pace said it was better to have a candidate with a strong mandate than one who is merely “acceptable” to the five most powerful members of the Security Council. Britain, China, France, the United States, and Russia all have a final say in the selection because of the veto powers they exercise.

Jeff Laurenti of the UNA-USA told IPS there have been calls for a single, seven-year term, usually from people who think the Secretary-General would be insulated from political pressures “if he or she weren’t worried about re-election.”

Some observers note that Kurt Waldheim would have been sent packing in just seven years, rather than 10, if such a term limit had been in effect. They refer to the belated discovery of his war record on behalf of Nazi Germany.

Laurenti argued that the issue is “vastly overblown.”

Boutros-Ghali is “certainly one of the most independent-minded Secretaries-General in history, and has not hesitated to call even Washington on the carpet — and even in his supposed re-election year,” he said.

“He has certainly felt immense political pressures from Washington, whether on peacekeeping policy or appointment of Americans to senior posts, and has often accommodated them.

“But I am convinced that he has done so, not out of concern for re-election, but because Washington’s fickle support for the United Nations itself is essential to the Organisation’s survival,” Laurenti said.