UNITED NATIONS: Single Term Favoured for Next UN Sec-Gen

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 25 1997 (IPS) - The next Secretary-General of the United Nations may not enjoy the luxury of 10 years in office as an overwhelming majority of member states favourd a single term for a reduced number of years.

India’s U.N. Ambassador, Prakash Shah, who co-chaired a two- year- old adhoc Working Group on the Strengthening of the U.N. System, says a major point of discussion over the past 24 months revolved around the desire to limit the term of office of the U.N.’s chief executive officer.

Shah said the only disagreement was over the length of the single term – whether it should be five, six, seven or eight years and the issue would be taken up by member states at the General Assembly’s next regular session which begins in September.

The Secretary-General now serves a five-year term and is eligible for re-election. Five of the six Secretaries-General so far have served two terms, some completing 10 years in office.

With the exception of Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali last year, the previous five Secretaries-General all served more than five years beginning with Trygve Lie of Norway who held office from 1946 to 1953.

Lie was followed by Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden who served from 1953 until his death in a plane crash in Africa in 1961. U Thant of Burma held the office of Secretary-General from 1961 to 1971 followed by Kurt Waldheim of Austria (1972-1981) and Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru (1982-1991).

Boutros-Ghali, who sought a second five-year term in December, was vetoed by the United States. When the Egyptian diplmat took office in January 1991, he said he would hold office only for one term, but changed his mind and decided to run again. The present Secretary-General Kofi Annan of Ghana took office in January 1997 and will continue through December 2002.

In a 25-page report to the Assembly, the Working Group says that “the duration of the term or terms of appointment, including the option of a single term, shall be considered before the appointment of the next Secretary-General.”

Edward Luck, formerly of the U.N. Association of USA (UNA-USA), says that “if member states… want to put in someone’s nephew or cousin or favourite politico into some position in the United Nations, it’s difficult for the Secretary-General to say no if he has to go back to those same member states for re-election.”

“So if you had a single term,” he argues, “that would give the Secretary-General more independence… Right now the member states like having control,” he says.

Asked what criteria would be used to select the next U.N. head, Shah said the Assembly “would seek to select the best candidate available in the world for the job.”

There were no conditions that a person should have a college degree, or should be from one place or the other, to run for the post of Secretary-General.

“The Working Group had not considered it appropriate to develop a binding set of criteria,” Shah noted. However, it has said that in identifying the best candidate for the job “due regard shall continue to be given to regional rotation and shall also be given to gender equality in the appointment of the Secretary-General.”

Boutros-Ghali decided to run for a second term because the former Secretaries-General from Europe, Asia and Latin America all had two terms. Africa should also have a second term, he said. Although both the Security Council and the General Assembly decided to give Africa a second term – they eventually opted for Kofi Annan.

The Asian group of nations says it is now Asia’s turn to field the next candidate for Secretary-General. But Asia is being opposed by Eastern Europe which has never had a Secretary-General in the 52-year history of the Organisation.

A 1996 study sponsored by two major think tanks implicitly accused some of the world’s major powers of manipulating the election of the Secretary-General so as to ensure that U.N. heads are political creatures with no minds of their own.

“It is impossible to escape the impression, that many governments, including some of the most powerful, do not want a strong, independent leader as Secretary-General,” said a study published under the auspices of the New York-based Ford Foundation and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation of Stockholm.

The authors of the study – Brian Urquhart and the late Erskine Childers – said the selection of the Secretary-General is quite literally part of “an old-boy network.” “The United Nations is an intergovernmental organisation, and governments have no intentions of giving up control of it,” the study said.

The two former high-ranking U.N. officials accused the big powers of instituting an election process which merely finds “a reasonably acceptable candidate who could get past five potential vetoes.” Their study urged the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia – to relinquish their claimed right of veto over the election of a Secretary-General.

The authors suggest that the lifting of the veto might be balanced by re-considering the tradition that no national of a permanent member state of the Security Council can be candidate for the post of Secretary-General.

The study also recommended that the General Assembly adopt a comprehensive new policy, including a single, seven-year term to free the incumbent from relection stresses and pressures.