BREAKING NEWS: An urgent battle to fix the United Nations is taking place behind the scenes. But disagreement between key nations—particularly the west and China—mean the chair of succession for the top job, Secretary General, remains empty.
Current titleholder António Guterres retires at the end of the year—just 14 weeks away—and there’s no succession plan for the ultra-high profile job which has a term of TEN YEARS.
China wants the UN to represent the majority of humanity. The BRICS group pointedly noted in a recent communiqué that no woman has ever led the UN, and the job has not often gone to the places where most humans live—Asia, Africa and Latin America.
They said: “We note that no woman has ever been elected for the role of secretary general, and only one national from Latin America and Caribbean, and only two nationals from Africa and Asia each have ever occupied this position.”
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POLLS TAKING PLACE
Other nations appear to have been listening.
Three informal polls of the 15 Security Council members have been taken in recent days, with women from non-western nations leading: Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica; Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana; and María Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador.
But all face opposition. None of the women are revealing their views on controversial topics, such as Israel, that would trigger hostility from certain quarters, and polls are anonymous. Thus predictions rely on rumours.
These say that western powerbrokers (the UK and France) don’t like any of the candidates, and are waiting for last-minute nominations.
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‘TRUMP LIKES INFANTINO’
And the US? Fifa president Gianni Infantino should get the job in the view of Donald Trump, the New York Post reported in July.
That sounded insane to diplomats. But Donald Trump has a spectacular tradition of parachuting complete outsiders into key roles, so he may well put forward Infantino or one of his business buddies or family members or himself for the job (and if so, he would do it in a social media post with lots of capital letters).
What happens next? There will be more rounds of voting, and then there will be a switch to color-coded anonymous ballots, with a different color for veto members. That means everyone gets to know who veto members will blackball.
And that’s the real problem. Real power lies with western nations, who take three of the five veto seats, despite the west being just 12 per cent of humanity.
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WHO REALLY USES THE VETO?
The US says that the Soviet Union/ Russia is the biggest user of the veto. While this is technically true (120+ uses since 1946), it is misleading.
The Russians used the veto a lot in the early post-war decades of the organization as self-protection during the Cold War, and then they stopped, becoming a rare user, like the Chinese.
The US first used its veto in 1970, but then got a taste for it. It has since used the veto at least 95 times. But here’s the odd thing.
About half of all its vetoes have NOT been to protect US or western interests, but those of Israel.
China says the veto system is unfair, and has only used its veto only about 16 times over the entire 80-year history of the United Nations.
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UNPREDICTABLE ELEMENTS
There are other factors to consider.
First, there’s a widespread belief that the UN achieves nothing. This is unfair. It does important humanitarian work around the world, feeding the hungry and looking after victims of war. It coordinates climate change action, and sends out 50,000 people in 11 peacekeeping missions to violent parts of the world.
Second, it is a key bulwark of international law, setting the ground rules. For example, despite the US veto on Israel-related condemnations, the UN still makes valuable rulings on important issues.
Furthermore, the UN has an International Court of Justice (not to be confused with the International Criminal Court) which makes significant judgments.
Third, the Donald Trump factor makes the whole debate unpredictable.
– Earlier this year, he cut the US out of 31 UN organisations.
– On the plus side, he also paid some of the money that the country owes to the United Nations budget.
– Then, on the side, he’s cultivating his international “Board of Peace”, which he hopes can grow into a US-led alternative United Nations.
– Last night it was revealed that the US refused visas to the team accompanying President Masoud Pezeshkian on his visit today (Tuesday) to New York for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly.
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HOW THE WORLD WORKS
Best hope: Given the US’s lack of enthusiasm for the UN, the best candidate will likely be one which China and the non-western world supports, but who can manage not to be vetoed by the US, UK and France.
As Xi Jinping and Donald Trump meet tomorrow, they could sort it out with a quick chat.
This may be how the world works these days.