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The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or just SG) is the head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The secretary-general serves as the chief administrative officer of the United Nations. The role of the United Nations Secretariat, and of the secretary-general in particular, is laid out by Chapter XV (Articles 97 to 101) of the United Nations Charter.
As of 2020, the secretary-general is António Guterres of Portugal, appointed by the General Assembly on 13 October 2016.[1]
Contents
1 Role
2 Selection and term of office
3 Residence
4 List of secretaries-general
5 Statistics
5.1 By regional group
6 Lifespan timeline
7 Living former secretaries-general
7.1 See also
8 References
9 External links
Role
The secretary-general was envisioned by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt as a "world moderator", but the vague definition provided by the United Nations Charter left much room for interpretation. The secretary-general is the "chief administrative officer" of the UN (Article 97) "in all meetings of the General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council, and shall perform other functions as are entrusted to him by these organs" (Article 98). They are also responsible for making an annual report to the General Assembly. They may notify the Security Council on matters which "in their opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security".
Other than these few guidelines, little else is dictated by the Charter. Interpretation of the Charter has varied between secretaries-general, with some being much more active than others.[citation needed] The secretary-general, along with the Secretariat, is given the prerogative to exhibit no allegiance to any state but to only the United Nations organization; decisions must be made without regard to the state of origin.[citation needed]
The secretary-general is highly dependent upon the support of the member states of the UN. Although the secretary-general may place any item on the provisional agenda of the Security Council, much of their mediation work takes place behind the scenes.[2]
In the early 1960s, Soviet first secretary Nikita Khrushchev led an effort to abolish the secretary-general position. The numerical superiority of the Western powers combined with the one state, one vote system meant that the secretary-general would come from one of them, and would potentially be sympathetic towards the West. Khrushchev proposed to replace the secretary-general with a three-person directorate (a "troika"): one member from the West, one from the Eastern Bloc, and one from the Non-Aligned powers. This idea failed because the neutral powers failed to back the Soviet proposal.[3][4]
Selection and term of office
See also: United Nations Secretary-General selection
The Secretariat Building is a 154 m (505 ft) tall skyscraper and the centerpiece of the Headquarters of the United Nations
The secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. As the recommendation must come from the Security Council, any of the five permanent members of the Council can veto a nomination. Most secretaries-general are compromise candidates from middle powers and have little prior fame.
Unofficial qualifications for the job have been set by precedent in previous selections. The appointee may not be a citizen of any of the Security Council's five permanent members.[5] The General Assembly resolution 51/241 in 1997 stated that, in the appointment of "the best candidate", due regard should be given to regional (continental) rotation of the appointee's national origin and to gender equality,[6]:5 although no woman has yet served as Secretary-General.
The length of the term is discretionary, but all secretaries-general since 1971 have been appointed to five-year terms. Every secretary-general since 1961 has been re-selected for a second term, with the exception of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was vetoed by the United States in the 1996 selection. There is a term limit of two full terms, established when China cast a record 16 vetoes against Kurt Waldheim's third term in the 1981 selection. No secretary-general since 1981 has attempted to secure a third term.
The selection process is opaque and is often compared to a papal conclave.[7][8] Since 1981, the Security Council has voted in secret in a series of straw polls. The Security Council then submits the winning candidate to the General Assembly for ratification. No candidate has ever been rejected by the General Assembly.[citation needed] In 2016, the General Assembly and the Security Council sought nominations and conducted public debates for the first time. However, the Security Council voted in private and followed the same process as previous selections, leading the president of the General Assembly to complain that it "does not live up to the expectations of the membership and the new standard of openness and transparency".[9]
Residence
The official residence of the secretary-general is a townhouse at 3 Sutton Place, Manhattan, in New York City, United States. The townhouse was built for Anne Morgan in 1921, and donated to the United Nations in 1972.[10]
List of secretaries-general |