“Considering the multiple and pressing challenges the United Nations faces today, what is the proper role of the Secretary-General as top international public servant? Discuss the required qualities and discipline of a Secretary-General in view of the practices and achievements of the successive Secretary-Generals”
Abstract
The United Nation was constructed on the basis of sovereign nation-states and of the sanctity of the frontiers of each under the Charter. Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nation suddenly found itself overburdened by the many new tasks, and many optimistic opinions were expressed about the role of United Nation multilateralism in the new world order. Most nations are members of the United Nation and send people to the headquarters to hold meetings and pass resolutions (make decisions) about global issues. The goals of the United Nations are to keep world peace, to help countries get along, to make become better living conditions for people all over the world, and to make the world a better place. The proper role Secretary-General as the top international public servant is the important to have produced more visible immediate results, while the member state dialogue is still continuing. Qualities and discipline the only way to move forward to solve the global issues in view of the practices and achievement of Secretary-General. Generally, all efforts aimed at adapting the United Nation to the changing conditions are called reform. Member states, facing with the problems they cannot handle alone, have directed the organization to take on new duty including responding to refugee flows, preserving human rights, improving sustainable development. These tasks can only be undertaken through a global organization such as the United Nation.
Introduction
Since the United Nation had exist in the world. There are many challenging that will faces today. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization exist in 1945 to increase political and economic cooperation among member countries. The organization OF United Nation works on economic and social development programs, to get a better human rights and decreasing global conflicts. There are many challenging that will faces today. Also have many achievement. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is a symbol of the Organization’s ideals and a spokesman for the interests of the world’s peoples, in particular the poor and helpless. The current Secretary-General of the UN, and the eighth occupant of the post that tell us is Mr Ban Ki-moon of the Republic of Korea, who took office on 1 January 2007 after succeeding Kofi Annan. The United Nation Charter show that the Secretary-General as “chief administrative officer” of the Organization.
Secretary-General is one of the main in United Nation. Secretary-General is organized along departmental line with each department having a clear area of action and responsibility. Offices and departments arrange with each other to guarantee cohesion as they carry out the day to day work of the organization in offices and commitment stations around the world. Secretary-General is the head of the United Nations Secretariat and they have their proper role of Secretary-General to do. One of the most vital roles played by the Secretary-General is the use of his “good offices”, there are a few ways taken publicly and in private, drawing upon his independence, equality and integrity, to stop international disagreement from appear, escalating or spread.
Because they have their proper role, qualities and discipline must be strong enough. Secretary-General’s good offices missions have achieved some notable successes. They have tackled disputes varying in substance and context – including essentially legal issues, questions of territorial sovereignty and civil wars – and have been based on various sources of authorization.
Challenges that United Nation Face
1.A) Peacekeeping Issues
There are two peacekeeping issues already happened. At the beginning In 1945, delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco to draft a authority for a new international collective security organization selected “to save succeed generations from the scourge of war.” Since the year 1948, the United Nations (and its now 193 members already) has conducted 67 peacekeeping operations from (Central America until Southeast Asia.). For the huge majority of destroy populations around the world, the United Nations has become synonymous with peacekeeping.
The first peacekeeping is when Peacekeepers were position to keep the peace, not to restore peace or stop on going fighting. United Nation peacekeeping forces be formed of lightly armed troops deployed to serve in a neutral capacity, physically interposed or inserted between dissenter. Since United Nation peacekeepers were a reminder of the international community’s common commitment to settle the conflict and primarily a visible discouragement, intentionally did not project an offensive military capability and peacekeepers did not need heavy weaponry. Armed with their iconic light blue helmets and also lightly, United Nation peacekeepers observed ceasefires and carry on in the field only so long as the invitation remained. Once an invitation was revoke, the United Nations was work to achieved its mandate by other means and required by its own rules of engagement to withdraw its forces
This approach to peacekeeping was easier to harmonize with the language of the United Nation. Charter, thus prevent any need to become fixated on the no of the term “peacekeeping” in the Charter. However, this model was not without serious limitations. Perhaps the best illustration of the test associated with first-generation peacekeeping is the initial United Nation. Emergency Force (UNEF I) mission that was station to the Sinai region of Egypt from 1956 to 1967.
The next peacekeeping born on the fly and communal violence that growth confronted the United Nations at the end of the Cold War out of a necessity to address the far more complex nature of the ethnic. It moved peacekeeping beyond the passive interposition role into something far more complicated and multidimensional. The United Nations primal intrastate struggle throughout much of the Global South and confronted an alarming proliferation. Its first-generation model of peacekeeping ill-designed for these new types of clashes and now perform inadequate. The United Nations was forced to enlarge its understanding of what peacekeeping entailed to include long-term conflict resolution. Peacekeeping speedily evolved from a limited role of symbolic deterrence primarily charged with monitoring an existing ceasefire to peace enforcement and an active one that involved in-depth conflict resolution. United Nation peacekeeping steal ever closer to peace implementation and enforcement.
Beginning in the 1990s, its approximate to resolving the underlying conflict became more strong but peacekeeping keep predicated on evision the resumption of hostilities between warring parties. United Nations peacekeeping missions were rising charged with implementing political solutions to the conflict, laying the foundation for a self-sustaining peace, shouldering the authority for compassionate assistance during the changed period. shoring up transitional governments, and prepared economic assistance for post-conflict states. One of the that we can learn taken away from (UNEF I) was the need for peacekeepers to be more involved in resolving the basic conflict. Stick to an interposition role was insufficient because it did little to create conditions for a lasting peace in the absence of international actors.
1.B) Stabilizing Somalia
Lately, spate of high profile high-seas hijackings has once again push Somalia into the international spotlight. Concerted Security Council action to fighting piracy, however, has not yet translated into a focused attention to the primer of the problem, which is under control in Somalia. Somalia has been 14 years without a central government. In December 2006, Ethiopian troops help by American airpower intercede displace the Union of Islamic Courts, a militant and political group that exerted powerful control over most of Somalia. Since then, the weak transitional government has been cannot to lay the foundations of governance and maintain control.
Next, without international intervention it is unsure that the Somalia groups will find a political solution on their own. As what always happen, the Security Council has periodically considered accepting a peacekeeping mission to Somalia. Although, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has advise that without an underlying peace to keep, it will be extremely difficult to find a country willing to give troops to such a mission. There are very small appetite for any multi-national influence to spearhead a solidity operation in Somalia. A couse challenge for the Security Council will be to stay focused on Somalia outside matters relating to fighting in the Indian Ocean.
1.C) Water Shortage
40 per cent suffer of shortfall in water in just 15 years unless countries dramatically change their use of the resource, a United Nation report warned Friday. Many underground water reserves are already running low, while rainfall patterns are predicted to become more unpredictable with climate change. In 20150, As we already know that the world’s population growth to an expected 9 billion, more under groundwater will be required for personal consumption ,farming and industries.
Richard Connor, lead author of the report, said with “business as usual” the world is facing a “collapse in our global socioeconomic system”. In 2050, the report forecast global water demand will rising 55 per cent, while reserves decrease. If present usage trends don’t change, the world will have only 60 per cent of the water it needs in 2030.
There are a few of risk when having less available water risks catastrophe on many fronts, crops could fail, ecosystems could break down, and violent conflicts over access to water could become more regular, industries could subside, and disease and poverty could become worse. “Unless the balance between demand and finite supplies is restored, the world will face an rising severe global water deficit,” the annual World Water Development Report said, nothing that more efficient use could make sure enough supply in the future.
Request for water is suppose to grow related to urbanization in developing countries by 2050 and there are two or thirds of the world’s population will be living and stay in cities, It show Urbanization need that access to safe water and enough sanitation, although typically higher in cities, has decreased in the fastest growing urban areas.
One of the example is sub-Saharan Africa, where urbanization is happening most speedy. Since 1990 has decrease to 34 per cent from 42 per cent of people who have and use piped water on their premises. “The spontaneous urbanization, which creates slums, makes it very difficult because of the layout of the slums to provide water,” Joan Clos, executive director of the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT), told Reuters.
1.D) Unreliable funding
Raising money is a constant problem with so many crises vying for the world’s attention. Many United Nation agencies and humanitarian operations are funded by voluntary contributions, and appeals aren’t getting enough donations. All 193 member states contribute to the United Nation’s regular budget and a separate peacekeeping budget, but some countries are chronically behind on their payments. In early November, members owed about $3.5 billion for regular operations and peacekeeping.
1.E) Political horse-trading
There is widespread behind-the-scenes jockeying for top jobs in the United Nation Secretariat and United Nation agencies, not to mention seats on key bodies like the Human Rights Council and the Security Council. Every country belongs to a regional group that lobbies to ensure it is well represented. There is often criticism that those who get the seats are not the best qualified, such as dictatorships elected to the rights council.
PROPER ROLE OF SECRETARY-GENERAL
Member States have authority in the organization, we, its professional staff, are the organization. The Secretariat of the United Nations is the most prove of the continuous existence of the international organization. Secretary-General (SG) of the United Nations is the chief administrative officer.
The political science literature tell us of the misconception of the rational actor model of decision making. United Nation is the even more true. The organization is not a unitary actor. There is no such thing as the United Nations. Instead, there are a fews United Nation. Geopolitical centre of gravity of the United Nation system is the Security Council. The General Assembly is the normative centre of gravity and The International Court of Justice is the legal centre of gravity.
Member States are the political masters of the United Nation, it is not valid, even also the Secretary-General and the United Nation in consequence the first and foremost a political organization. Therefore, it is decisions result from political bargaining, accommodation based on power equations and competing national interests. Hoping that the international interest will somehow appear from this interplay of hard negotiations among Member States
• Administrative. The Secretariat United Nation executive office has a staff of close to 9000 people from about 170 different type of countries. Each of administrative responsibilities differently handled by secretary-general. United Nation operations, including research, translation, and media relations is handled by The secretary-general oversees the United Nation Secretariat. Boutros Boutros-Ghali told streamlined the system by adding under-secretaries-general to manage operations and report back.
• Human Resources. The hiring of under-secretaries for around 50 United Nation posts, including the heads of funds such as UNICEF and UNDP, under the title of secretary-general. One of the an important aspect of the hiring process involves lobbying from members to fill posts with their nationals, high point the secretary-general’s role of negotiating with the General Assembly and Security Council to guarantee broad regional representation.
• Peacekeeping. The secretary-general’s office shoulders responsibility for overseeing peacekeeping missions and appoints the under-secretary in charge of that department, involving some 16 operations worldwide as of September 2008. Although the Security Council or General Assembly may begin a peacekeeping mission, operational control rests with the Secretariat
• Mediation. This function required the secretary-general’s role as a mediator between parties in conflict. Make it use of his impartiality and freedom as the head of a global organization to prevent spread of conflict is the part of his “good offices” role the secretary-general. For the examples of United Nation leaders taking on mediation roles in the past include Hammarskjöld’s promotion of an armistice between Israel and Arab states and Javier Perez de Cuellar’s negotiation of a ceasefire to end the Iraq-Iran War.
QUALITIES SECRETARY OF GENERAL
After succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007 next turn is Ban Ki-Moon as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Before be a Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations.
The first qualities of secretary general is:
1A) Promoting sustainable development
Extensive diplomatic attempt that have helped put the issue at the forefront of the global agenda beside the first major Secretary-General’s initiatives was the 2007 Climate Change Summit. Next, efforts to focus on the Millennium Development Goals, the world’s main anti-poverty targets, on Africa the advanced Global Strategy on Women’s and Children’s Health and have produced more than $60 billion in pledges, with a special emphasis. In 2008, at the height of the food, energy and economic crises, the Secretary-General successfully appealed to took other steps to guide the international response and protect the vulnerable and poor and the G20 for a $1 trillion financing package for developing countries.
1B) Empowering women
A major new agency that unite the United Nation, The Secretary-General pressed successfully for the creation of United Nation Women to work in this area. His advocacy for women’s rights and gender equality has also contain the “Unite to End Violence against Women” campaign, the creation of a “Network of Men Leaders”, the “Stop Rape Now” initiative and the creation of a new Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Within the United Nation itself, the Secretary-General has growth the number of women in senior management positions by more than 40 per cent, passing the highest level in the Organization’s history.
1C) Supporting countries facing crisis or instability
The Secretary-General has look for to strengthen United Nation peace efforts, including through the New Horizons peacekeeping planned the Civilian Capacity Review and the Global Field Support Strategy, a package of steps to improve the impact of the one hundred and twenty thousand United Nations “blue helmets” operating in the world’s conflict zones. A mediation support unit, together with new capacity to carry out the Secretary-General’s good offices, have been set up to lead and resolve tensions, help prevent conflicts and crises. The new United Nations norm point at prevent and halt genocide and other grave crimes, accountability for violations of human rights has received high-level attention through any question related to Pakistan, Guinea, Gaza and Sri Lanka also, legal processes in Lebanon and Cambodia, and advocacy for the “responsibility to protect”. Accountability has also try to strengthen humanitarian response in the aftermath of mega-disasters in Myanmar (2008), Haiti (2010) and Pakistan (2010), and mobilized United Nation support for the democratic transitions in North Africa and the Middle East.
1D) Generating new momentum on disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation
The Secretary-General has the best effort to rejuvenate the disarmament agenda through a 5-point plan, efforts to break the deadlock at the Conference on Disarmament and renewed attention to nuclear safety and security in the aftermath of the tragedy at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
1E) Resilience
We’re all familiar with Murphy’s Law, but I’ve always been most moved by what is known in the Antipodes as O’Toole’s Corollary: “If you’re feeling good, don’t worry: you’ll get over it.” All of the features that enable one to continue to perform effectively in high office for the end of years. The critical one is resilience, the ability to bounce back from these situations without thinking and empty-headedly, learning nothing from the experience and having every prospect of repeating it, but in a way that enables you to move on constructively.
Another way of putting this is to say that you have to have a thick skin, but that’s a little crude. Including a real capacity to laugh at yourself is the next way to say that you should have a sense of humour. But that can actually be quite dangerous in any political context, what can be a inferred after witnessing government and politics in Australia for twenty one years was that the secret of ministerial success was to be a dead bore and suspect that is something that crosses cultures.
Next, the real point can be is that if you want a Secretary-General to be effective in all the high-risk activity that is part and parcel of the discharge of his or her peace and security role in particular, it is best to choose someone who really has been tempered in the rough, tumble of public life, and knows how to take the falls without going to pieces or retreating totally into an impotent shell thereafter. Because of that , Secretaries-General like Dag Hammarskjöld and Annan came from fairly sheltered bureaucratic careers at affordable and make the judgment they will be capable of that kind of resilience, if your choice doesn’t have that kind of background and it is worth remembering that very good, and courageous.
1F) Practical intelligence
Practical intelligence is not the same, it would all acknowledge, as academic intelligence. For example, in intelligent and sophisticated debate about the differences between functionalism and constructivism which is something never been able to organize is not what the practical conduct of international relations is all about. Functionalism means the doctrine that the design of an object should be determined solely by its function, rather than by aesthetic considerations, and that anything practically designed will be inherently beautiful and constructivism is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas.
It is also means an ability to see patterns and shapes in that data flow, and to be able to see opportunities as they arise. The Secretary-General does not necessarily have to generate good ideas, but it is critical that he or she be able to recognize the and one has to know enough about people and their foibles to have a chance of making the right personnel choices.
DISCIPLINE OF SECRETARY GENERAL
1A) Legislative framework governing the conduct of staff members
Chapter I of the Staff Rules and Article I of the Staff Regulations, both titled “Duties, obligations and privileges”, state of the basic values expected of international civil servants because of their status, as well as particular manifestations of such basic values. Specific reference is made to staff regulation 1.2 and staff rule 1.2 for specific instances of expected and prohibited.
1B) Misconduct
Who engage in misconduct, Staff regulation 10.1 (a) provides that the Secretary-General may impose disciplinary measures on staff members. Next, the staff rule 10.1 (a) prepared that the “failure by a staff member to observed with his or her commitment under the Charter of the United Nations, the Staff Regulations and Staff Rules or other relevant administrative issuances or to comply the standards of conduct expected of an international civil servant may amount to misconduct and may lead to the imposition of disciplinary measures for misconduct and the institution of a disciplinary process”. In addition, staff rule 10.1 (c) prepared that “the decision to institute a disciplinary process, to start an investigation into allegations of misconduct, and to impose a disciplinary measure shall be within officials with delegated authority or the discretionary authority of the Secretary-General”. In determining what in imposing disciplinary measures and constitutes misconduct made by the Secretary-General has broad discretion. For provides further examples of conduct for which disciplinary measures may be imposed, the administrative instruction should revised disciplinary producers and measures (ST/AI/371 and Amend.1). A new administrative instruction on investigations, the disciplinary process continues to be under preparation, remain the subject of in discussion, and deliberation between management and other stakeholders.
1C) Procedural fairness
Firstly, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management for a decision on whether to pursue the matter as a disciplinary case when a head of office or a responsible officer believes, following an investigation, that misconduct may have occurred. Next, The investigation may have been undertaken by the head of office or his or her designees, or by the Office of Internal Oversight Services, at the request of a head of office or it is own initiative, depending on the subject matter and complexity of the report of misconduct
Next, the staff member is notified in writing of the allegations of misconduct and is informed about the opportunity to comment on the allegations and the right to get the assistance of counsel in defence through the Office of Staff Legal Assistance or from outside counsel at them (he or she) own expense, if the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management determine to pursue the matter as a disciplinary case. In addition, the staff member is given a rational opportunity to respond to the allegations of misconduct. In view of the comments provided by the staff member, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management determine between to close the case, with or without administrative action, or to recommend the imposition of one or more disciplinary measures. In the second case, the Under-Secretary-General for Management decides, on behalf of the Secretary-General, between to charge one or more of the disciplinary measures provided for in staff rule 10.2 (a).
1D) Disciplinary measures
Next in Staff rule 10.2 (a) is provides that disciplinary measures may impose one or more of the below forms (more than one measure may be imposed in each case):
(1) Written censure
(2) Loss of one or more steps in grade
(3) Deferment, for a specified period, of eligibility for salary increment
(4) Suspension without salary for a specified period
(5) Deferment, for a specified period, of eligibility for consideration for promotion,
(6) Demotion, with deferment, for a specified period, of eligibility for consideration for promotion,
(7) Separation from service, with notice or compensation in lieu of notice, and with or without termination indemnity,
(8) Fine
In order to the appropriate measure, each case is decided on its own merit, taking into account the particulars of the case, involve aggravating and mitigating circumstances. In addition, disciplinary determine imposed on a staff member must be proportionate to the nature and gravity of the misconduct included in staff rule 10.3 (b)
Conclusion
In the conclusion, we learnt that many challenges faces by united nation, proper role of secretary of general and also qualities and discipline of secretary of general. The United Nation is now 70 years old and the current Secretary General stresses the ―need to reform and reinforce the organization to maintain its relevance and effectiveness in a changing global security environment. Within last 70 years the world has evolved rapidly but the United Nation has been unable to catch up. That is the reason behind its inability to tackle many of the contemporary issues which exceed beyond state boundaries.
In such a context, if the states are not ready to change their own policies for the better, the United Nation has to change itself to tackle all those absurdities and complexities. Technically speaking, the verdict is, if the global order has evolved from rigid bipolarity to unipolarity and then to nonpolarity, the United Nation has to reform itself accordingly to sustain its viability. This is splendidly expressed in the following words of a former United Nation Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld: the United Nations is ―an experiment in progress towards an international community living in peace under the laws of justice. Challenges that face by United Nation must take serious to make sure it can be resolve. Many challenges might appear in the future as the ones discussed above.
Achievement that discuss above show that Secretary of General play an important role. Behind the achievement, we also have the discipline of the staff that should be. What matters is prompt recognition and right reforms, which is indirectly meant by the experiment in progress.