Chapter 7:   DECISIONS AND DOCUMENTS

Section 5:   Decisions to recommend appointments of Secretaries-General

 

Appointing the next Secretary-General: the relevance of regional rotation

 

At the United Nations, and in broad segments of civil society worldwide, there is a groundswell of support for the next Secretary-General to be a candidate of the highest qualifications, and ideally a woman. Therefore, many observers have been puzzled by the prominence in the appointment process that has often been given at the UN to the factor of regional rotation. This prominence is apparent not only in statements made by a number of Member States, but even more strikingly, in the fact that of the thirteen candidates officially nominated for the position in 2016, nine were from countries belonging to the UN group of Eastern Europe: Bulgaria (2), Croatia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.[1] Four of these Eastern European candidates were women.

 

During the Organization’s early decades, regional rotation among States for apportioning key positions at the UN was not a well-developed concept. With respect to the Security Council, Article 23(1) of the Charter does provide that Council members should be elected with “due regard” to “equitable geographical distribution”. However, during the early decades of the Cold War, regional identity was often eclipsed by whether a Council candidate adhered to the Western bloc or the Soviet bloc, or considered itself non-aligned.

 

The UN Charter is silent on the question of regional rotation for the post of Secretary-General. And it is clear that for the first Secretaries-General, neutrality from the major Cold War alliances was seen as a more important qualification than the region represented.

 

Gradually, however, as large numbers of newly independent African and Asian countries joined the United Nations, the Organization’s Member States began developing a regional system for distributing positions at the UN. This system became institutionalized for the first time in 1963, when the General Assembly adopted a resolution which created a fixed geographical pattern for allocating seats on the Security Council. Thereafter, other UN positions came to rotate on a regular basis among regional groups, including the President, Vice-Presidents and Committee Chairs of the General Assembly; the Presidents of ECOSOC and of the Human Rights Commission (now Council); and the Chairs of the Disarmament Commission and later, the Peacebuilding Commission.

 

This system of geographical rotation generally has ensured that no single region simultaneously holds a disproportionate number of important positions at the UN, and also has made it more likely that smaller States can participate in leadership roles. Speaking at a 2015 programme held at the International Peace Institute,[2] Croatia’s then Permanent Representative Vladimir Drobnjak stated that regional groups “are not just an auxiliary measure in the system. They are the heart of the system.” At the same programme, former Indian Permanent Representative Hardeep Singh Puri affirmed that the regional group system at the UN “is far more important than it appears from the outside.” 

 

At present, all 193 UN Member States are voluntarily affiliated with one of five regional groups: the Africa Group (54 members); the Group of Asia and the Pacific Small Island Developing States (known as the “Asia-Pacific Group” – 55 members if the Observer State of Palestine is included); the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (known as “GRULAC” – 33 members); the Western European and Other States Group (known as “WEOG” – 29 members for electoral purposes); and the Eastern European Group (23 members).

 

As the system of regional rotation coalesced within the UN, it became natural for many States to think that this system should extend also to the position of Secretary-General. Although of the nine incumbents, a disproportionate number of four have come from WEOG, the nationalities of the other five Secretaries-General in fact evidence a pattern of regional rotation: two from Africa, two from Asia-Pacific, and one from GRULAC. However, the influence of regional rotation as a selection criterion for appointing Secretaries-General was mainly a general concept until 1991. That year, although candidates from other regions were considered, the Africa Group and its supporters made a strong case that the next Secretary-General should come from Africa because it was the only large regional group which had not yet provided an incumbent for the post. That argument held sway, and ultimately Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt was appointed.

 

In 1997, the General Assembly adopted a resolution which testified to the fact that by then, the concept of regional rotation had become an established criterion for appointing Secretaries-General. Resolution 51/241 stated that “In the course of the identification and appointment of the best candidate for the post of Secretary-General, due regard shall continue to be given to regional rotation and shall also be given to gender equality.” (emphasis added)

 

This system of rotation, however, ran into complications when it became apparent that, unlike previous Secretaries-General, Boutros-Ghali would be blocked from serving a second term. There was consensus at the time that an African candidate should be his successor, so that in total, African incumbents would hold the post for the customary two consecutive terms, and this led to the appointment of Kofi Annan. The general understanding was that Annan would serve only one term, to complete a ten-year cycle of an African filling the position.

 

Because by then Eastern Europe was the only region which had not yet produced a Secretary-General, that group anticipated that at the completion of Annan’s original five-year tenure, an Eastern European would be appointed the next Secretary-General in 2001. However, Annan’s stewardship of the United Nations was so widely regarded as successful that he was appointed for a second term.

 

In 2004, two years before the end of Annan’s second term, the Eastern Europe Group conveyed to UN Member States its position that the next Secretary-General should be from its region. In the selection process of 2006, however, once again Eastern Europe was bypassed, this time in favour of the appointment of a candidate from the Asia-Pacific Group, Ban Ki-moon. This outcome, according to former United States Permanent Representative John Bolton, was the result of “a 2001 political deal between the African and Asian groups for Asia to support Annan for a second term (Africa’s third consecutive term), in exchange for Africa’s committing to vote for an Asian in 2006”.[3] Ban was subsequently appointed to serve a second term ending on 31 December 2016.

 

Thus, after waiting fifteen years since 2001, in 2016 the Eastern European Group held the firm conviction that it was time for the next Secretary-General to be from its region. At a press conference in September 2015, the then Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly I. Churkin noted that the Eastern European Group had written a letter to the General Assembly President in which it “reiterates that we strongly believe that this is our turn”.[4] During the 2016 appointment process, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, referring to the prospects of his own country’s nominee, Helen Clark, alluded to regional rotation when he said that “there has to be a degree of realism because with all of these jobs, it can be very much who they think someone’s turn is.”[5] To those who argued that the system of regional rotation for appointing Secretaries-General had become outmoded, Eastern Europeans responded that most of the States taking that position had adhered closely to the principle of geographic balance in appointing earlier incumbents.

 

As noted above, nine of the thirteen candidates officially nominated[6] in 2016 were from Eastern Europe. It was thought these nominees would initially be the frontrunners, but that as the process went on, if none of them appeared able to amass the necessary support, backing might shift to candidates from other regions. Under this scenario, the region considered next in line, in terms of geographic rotation, was Latin America and the Caribbean. This was because the only GRULAC Secretary-General had served for two terms, whereas WEOG incumbents had served for six terms, Asia-Pacific for four, and Africa for three. And in fact two women from GRULAC – one from Argentina and one from Costa Rica – were among the officially nominated candidates in 2016.

 

Ultimately, in 2016, neither a candidate from Eastern Europe nor one from GRULAC succeeded in gaining the Security Council’s recommendation. Following open sessions in the Assembly to hear the nominees’ platforms, and after closed discussions of Security Council members with each candidate, António Guterres of Portugal emerged as the only candidate in the Security Council straw polls to receive no “discouragements” from permanent members.[7] Upon his subsequent recommendation by the Security Council and then appointment by the General Assembly, Guterres became the fourth Secretary-General from WEOG, thus evidencing that in 2016, neither gender balance nor regional rotation eventually was decisive.

 

As António Guterres approaches the end of his second term in 2026, the relative weight that should be given to geographic balance in appointing Secretaries-General is emerging again as an issue. While regional rotation was earlier listed before gender balance in General Assembly resolutions relating to appointing the Secretary-General, more contemporaneous resolutions have given first mention to gender. The most recent of such Assembly resolutions, A/RES/77/335, “reaffirms previous resolutions referring to gender balance and regional rotation in the course of the identification and appointment of the best candidate for the post of Secretary-General”.

 

With respect to the 2026 appointment process, it is not expected that there will be a change to the standard five-year term of office, despite lobbying by some for a single seven-year term. And if a decision were subsequently taken to change the term length, it would be likely to apply only after the 2026 appointee had the same opportunity as prior Secretaries-General to serve a second five-year term. Thus, if a candidate from either Eastern Europe or GRULAC becomes the next Secretary-General, this will effectively lock out candidates from the other region until 2036.

 

So, if geographic balance becomes a primary consideration in 2026, which region’s turn will it be? After the 2016 appointment process, it appeared that many felt the Eastern European countries, by not nominating a candidate who could gain the support of all P5, had forfeited indefinitely their opportunity for an Eastern European to serve as Secretary-General. Accordingly, over the past two years, it has seemed that the majority of individuals informally testing the strength of support for their possible candidacies have been women from GRULAC countries. However, more recently, as reported by PassBlue, Vuk Jeremić of Serbia, who ran in 2016, may again be considering becoming a candidate. This could signal that when the process gets officially underway, nominees will be from both GRULAC and Eastern Europe. And in such case, it is likely that no candidate from either region would gain a preponderance of support based merely on geographic balance, since each region can contend that it has been underrepresented in the office of Secretary-General.

 

If in the 2026 appointment process a nominee from GRULAC becomes the next Secretary-General, the question arises whether Eastern Europe will try once again in 2036. On the other hand, if an Eastern European is appointed in 2026, it will complete the cycle whereby each regional group has been represented in the office at least once. This may, in turn, open the way for a broader discussion of the criteria to be considered in selecting subsequent Secretaries-General. However, in the present rapidly shifting political landscape, it remains a possibility that, as occurred in 2016, in the 2026 appointment process neither geographic rotation nor gender balance will be the governing criteria for selecting the next Secretary-General.

 

An earlier 2016 version of this article was prepared as a brief for "One World Trust" and was posted on the website of "1 for 7 billion", together with briefs by other authors. 

(This update supplements pages 404 to 415 of the book.)

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[1] Of the other four nominees, two were from countries in the UN Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (Argentina and Costa Rica) and and two from countries in the Western European and Other States Group (New Zealand and Portugal).

[2] Programme hosted on 24 April 2015 by the International Peace Institute entitled “To Choose the Next UN Secretary-General, First Create a Procedure”.

[3] John Bolton. 2008. Surrender is Not an Option. New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 276.

[4] UNwebcast, "SC President Vitaly I. Churkin (Russian Federation) on the Security Council Programme of work in September 2015 - Press Conference".

[5] "Key on Clark:  'amazingly capable' for top UN job", Audrey Young, New Zealand Herald, 4 April 2016.

[6] Beginning with A/RES/75/325, General Assembly resolutions have confirmed that nominations of candidates must be submitted by at least one Member State.

[7] According to leaks, the three Eastern Europeans whose candidacies remained viable the longest, Vuk Jeremić received three “discouragements” in the straw polls, while two other Eastern European candidates – Irina Bokova and Miroslav Lajčak – received two “discouragements”.