EISAKU SATO ESSAY CONTEST 2016
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-General.
Name: Siti Lyiana Syamimi binti Shaikh Azman
Affiliation: Universiti Sains Malaysia (School of Management)
Age: 20 Years Old
Gender: Female
Nationality: Malaysia
E-mail: lyianasyamimi143@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. It is currently made up of 193 Member States. The mission and work of the United Nations are guided by the purposes and principles contained in its founding Charter. The summary of the functions of the United Nations are maintain international peace and security, promote sustainable development, protect human rights, uphold international law and deliver humanitarian aid. The Charter describes the Secretary-General as chief administrative officer of the organization, who shall act in that capacity and perform other functions as are entrusted to him or her by the Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and other United Nations organizations. It also creative tension accompanies the Secretary-General through day that includes attendance at sessions of United Nations bodies. The Secretary-General is also called as Chairman of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), which brings together the Executive Heads of all UN funds, programmes and specialized agencies twice a year in order to further coordination and cooperation in the entire range of substantive and management issues facing the United Nations System. Each Secretary-General also defines and adapts the role to meet the challenges and opportunities of a particular time in office. Secretary-General Annan is right to ask how the United Nations should come to grips with these new challenges. The principle that guiding any UN reform should be responsibility, accountability, effectiveness, stewardship of financial resources and modernization. What are the main responsibilities of the Secretary-General? The main job scope of Secretary-General is being as administrative, peacekeeping and mediation. The qualities of Secretary-General are including with its combination of external pressures from member states, internal house pressures, and relentless intellectual, physical and emotional demands, this is manifestly one of the most hair-raisingly stressful jobs in the world.
1.0 INTRODUCTIONS TO UNITED NATION
The name of “United Nations” is coined by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt was first used in the Declaration by United Nations of 1st January 1942, during the Second World War, when representatives of 26 nations pledged their governments to continue fighting together against the Axis Powers. In 1945, representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter. Those delegates deliberated on the basis of proposals worked out by the representatives of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States at Dumbarton Oaks, United States in August-October 1944.The Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries. Poland, which was not represented at the Conference, signed it later and became one of the original 51 Member States. The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by a majority of other signatories. United Nations Day is celebrated on 24 October each year. (United Nations, 2016)
What did the functions of United Nations? The summary of the functions of the United Nations are maintain international peace and security, promote sustainable development, protect human rights, uphold international law and deliver humanitarian aid.
First of all, UN is maintaining international peace and security. The UN does by working to prevent conflict, helping other parties in conflict to have some peace, peacekeeping and creating the conditions to allow peace to hold and flourish. These activities often overlap and should reinforce one another and help by each other to be effective. Next, to promote sustainable development one of the main priorities of the United Nations was to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion starting on 1945. The global understanding of development has changed over the years, and countries now have agreed that sustainable development. UN also functioned as to protect the human rights. What is meant by ‘human rights’? The term of ‘human rights’ was mentioned seven times in the UN's founding Charter, to make the promotion and protection of human rights a key purpose and guiding principle of the Organization. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights brought human rights into the realm of international law. Since then, the organization has diligently protected human rights through legal instruments and on-the-ground activities. Besides, the UN Charter objective is to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained by approving peacekeeping missions, impose sanctions, or authorize the use of force when there is a threat to international peace and security, if it deems this necessary. These powers are given to it by the UN Charter, which is considered an international treaty to protect people’s relations. Lastly, one of the purpose of UN is to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character. The organization is now relied upon by the international community to coordinate humanitarian relief operations due to natural and man-made disasters in areas beyond the relief capacity of national authorities alone after the second world war.
The job scope of Secretary-General in United Nations is he as symbol of UN ideals and as a spokesperson for the interests of the world’s peoples, most particular the poor and vulnerable. Mr. Ban Kimoon of the Republic Korea who is the current Secretary-General which is the eighth occupant of the post on 1st January 2007.
2.0 JOB SCOPE OF SECRETARY-GENERAL
(United Nations, 2016)The Charter describes the Secretary-General as chief administrative officer of the organization, who shall act in that capacity and perform other functions as are entrusted to him or her by the Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and other United Nations organizations. The Charter also empowers the Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security. These guidelines both define the powers of the office and grant it considerable scope for action. The Secretary-General would fail if he did not take careful account of the concerns of Member States, but he must also uphold the values and moral authority of the United Nations, and speak and act for peace, even at the risk, from time to time, of challenging or disagreeing with those same Member States.
That creative tension accompanies the Secretary-General through day that includes attendance at sessions of United Nations bodies are consultations with world leaders, government officials, and others and also worldwide travel intended to keep him in touch with the peoples of the organizat
ion's member States and informed about the vast array of issues of international concern that are on the organization's agenda. Each year, the Secretary-General issues a report on the work of the United Nations that appraises its activities and outlines future priorities. The Secretary-General is also called as Chairman of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), which brings together the Executive Heads of all UN funds, programmes and specialized agencies twice a year in order to further coordination and cooperation in the entire range of substantive and management issues facing the United Nations System. One of the most important roles played by the Secretary-General is the use of his "good offices" which is steps taken public and in private, drawing upon his independence, impartiality and integrity in order to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading. Each Secretary-General also defines and adapts the role to meet the challenges and opportunities of a particular time in office.
3.0 CHALLENGES THAT UNITED NATIONS FACE TODAY
(Holmes, 2003) Back to year 2003, Secretary-General Annan is right to ask how the United Nations should come to grips with these new challenges. The United States, for its part, has responded to the dangers of our time with resolve and President Bush and Secretary of State Powell continue to call upon the members of the United Nations not to shy away from these challenges, but rather to deal with them head on. The resolution not only expands the UN role in Iraq, commensurate with its expertise and capacity. It also offers a path for the full exercise of sovereignty by the Iraqi people – one of America's central goals and the resolution calls on UN members to contribute troops and financial assistance to enhance security and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
The first principle guiding any UN reform should be responsibility. Since September 11th, we have urged every country to consider the world's future should terrorism and proliferation continue unabated. We have appealed to every nation to fulfil its inherent responsibility, as a member of the international community, to help stop these global dangers. With these goals in mind, we are reviewing the Secretary-General's ideas. He would like a commission to examine the threats posed by terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, and the role that collective action through the UN could play in addressing them.
The second principle that should guide UN reform is accountability. This applies to the long-standing discussion on changing the Security Council's composition. The differences among countries as to who should get or lose a seat are as fierce as they are varied. The current system is curious. For example, Japan's budget assessment is twenty thousand times greater than the lowest assessment, which is paid by over 40 nations. Yet, Japan does not have a seat on the Council. Whether permanent or elected members of the Council, accountability ideally demands that membership go to those who shoulder the burdens. We support exploring ways to make the Security Council more truly representative: The best way to do so is to ensure that democratic countries serve on it. The General Assembly and UN committees also have a difficult time establishing and implementing program priorities. The members that foot most of the bills have insufficient voice over the budget and over program priorities. The United Nations would surely be more fiscally responsible if these nations had more to say in establishing program and budget priorities.
Third principle guiding reform should be effectiveness. The president of the General Assembly, Julian Hunte, has called for streamlining its agenda, and we agree. The General Assembly and ECOSOC, the Economic and Social Council, sit over a maze of committees, agencies, conferences, programs, and commissions. The system needs consolidation and rationalization. ECOSOC, whose programs account for more than two-thirds of UN expenditures, needs rethinking, as the Secretary-General has suggested. With fifty-four members, the body is too big to effectively direct all the activities under its mandate, yet too small to represent all of the UN's members. ECOSOC might benefit from moving in one of two different directions. It could decrease membership to a number that would permit concerted action. Or, it could shift toward universal participation with full powers. Reducing it would make it more efficient. Enlarging it would make it more inclusive. Either option would be better than the current situation, which allows waste and inefficiency.
The fourth principle of UN reform is stewardship of financial resources. Carefully targeted spending to achieve beneficial goals is wise. That is why the United States has voluntarily contributed more for UN activities that help developing countries strengthen their economies by harnessing market forces, attacking corruption, and consolidating the rule of law. And, that is also why we have backed increases in the UN budget to improve the security of UN facilities and personnel, as well as counterterrorism activities. Every nation should work to ensure that the UN spends every dollar in its coffers carefully. We support, for example, Russia's efforts to maintain fiscal discipline in the UN. The push by Australia and others to end unsuccessful and outdated UN activities is timely. The General Assembly's Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions could exercise more influence to eliminate waste. Having more experts from higher-contributing states would increase fiscal accountability. Also, the cost of implementing a treaty, regardless of who ratifies it, should not automatically fall upon the entire membership.
The fifth principle guiding reform should be modernization. Nations in the UN assembly by region. As the European Union expands and tries further to integrate its foreign policy into a single voice, the composition of the Western European and Other States Group (WEOG) and the Eastern European Group may be increasingly questioned, with some of the EU's future 25 members in both groups.
4.0 PROPER ROLE OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL AS TOP INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC SERVANT
(Vriens, 2011)What are the main responsibilities of the Secretary-General? First, Secretary-General as administrative. The secretary-general oversees the UN Secretariat, which handles UN operations, including research, translation, and media relations. The Secretariat–the UN's executive office–has a staff of close to nine thousand people from about 170 different countries. Each secretary-general has handled his administrative responsibilities differently. Hammarskjöld established a system of offices in charge of legal, political, personnel, and budgetary aspects of the secretariat. Boutros Boutros-Ghali streamlined the system by adding under-secretaries-general to oversee operations and report back. During Annan's administration, the deputy secretary-general position was created to handle day-to-day operations. This book, published by the International Peace Institute, history the evolution of the secretariat.
Next, as a peacekeeping. The secretary-general's office shoulders responsibility for overseeing peacekeeping missions and appoints the under-secretary in charge of that department, involving some sixteen operations worldwide as of September 2008. Although the General Assembly or Security Council may initiate a peacekeeping mission, operational control rests with the Secretariat.
The third responsibility of Secretary-General is as a mediation. This function involves the secretary-general's role as a mediator between parties which in conflict. As part of his "good offices" role the secretary-general makes use of his independence and impartiality as the head of a global organization to prevent and stop the spread of conflict. Examples of UN leaders taking on mediation roles in the past include Hammarskjöld&
#39;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.
Does the Secretary-General play a politic role? Yes. Despite the open-ended nature of the job description, the position calls for less of a clerk than did the role of director of the League of Nations, the UN's predecessor. Article 99 of the UN Charter says the secretary-general "may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." This provision allows a secretary-general to choose between playing an activist role, in the tradition of Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish diplomat, or more of a bureaucratic role, as did Austria's Kurt Waldheim. Stephen Schlesinger, a UN expert and former director of the World Policy Institute, says the job can serve as a "perch" used "to rally world public opinion around issues that wouldn't necessarily have been addressed otherwise."
5.0 QUALITIES AND DISCIPLINE OF SECRETARY-GENERAL
(Evans)The difficulty of defining the job description of Secretary-General and the disjunction between the responsibilities of the office and the process for selecting the officer. With its combination of external pressures from member states, internal house pressures, and relentless intellectual, physical and emotional demands, this is manifestly one of the most hair-raisingly stressful jobs in the world. So what is it that a Secretary-General most needs in terms of both personal qualities and environmental resources to carry it off effectively?
If one really wants a paragon of all the virtues one would no doubt have to list many more factors than those I mention here, including those that Brian Urquhart and Shashi Tharoor have mentioned earlier in this volume. About the only item missing from their combined checklist is dress sense. But let me offer, from my own perhaps idiosyncratic perspective — drawn substantially from my own long ministerial experience — a list of what I at least think are the seven most important.
First of all, practical intelligence. Practical intelligence is not the same, I think we would all acknowledge, as academic intelligence. Being able to engage, for example, in intelligent and sophisticated debate about the differences between functionalism and constructivism which is something that I for one have never been able to manage is not what the practical conduct of international relations is all about.
But it also means a lot more than being able to read in meetings from the right prompt cards. And it means, in Isaiah Berlin’s terms, being more a fox than a hedgehog: it might have been good enough for an evidently much beloved US President of recent decades to know one big thing rather than many things, but it is not enough for this job, which requires an ability to absorb, retain, and mentally organise a huge amount of information across a very broad front.
It 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 doesn’t necessarily have to generate good ideas, but it is critical that he or she be able to recognize them. And one has to know enough about people and their foibles to have a chance of making the right personnel choices.
Second quality is Secretary-General need to have full of information. It’s no use being able to process information if you don’t have it. The Secretary-General, like anyone else in high office, is bombarded daily with a barrage of what passes for information like press reports, advisers’ reports and briefs, panel reports, governments’ blandishments, lobbyists’ appeals. But it is not always the information he or she most needs, and for all the quality of the people in the Departments of Political Affairs (DPA) and Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and elsewhere within the present Secretariat, the Secretary-General is notoriously under-resourced in-house for the kind of really detailed analysis of situations and possible strategies that is a crucial element in effective conflict prevention and resolution. Although there has been some catch-up, and there may be some more with the creation of the Peacebuilding Support Unit, we are all familiar with the sad history of the Brahimi Panel’s recommendation for the creation of an Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat (EISAS).
An effective Secretary-General has to escape from time to time from the comfortable insulation of the United Nations and reach out for the kind of information he or she really needs. To combine my point with some shameless self-advertisement: a Secretary-General who shall remain nameless told me once that one of the things he liked about International Crisis Group reports is that he knew he was hearing in them, among other things, the real voices of his own people on the ground, giving the unvarnished reality about troubled situations, and the performance of the United Nations and others in responding to them not the very often bowdlerized, gutted, and filleted version of that reality that makes its way up the system after everything that might cause offence to host governments, member states, and officials higher up the organizational food chain have been edited out.
The third one is need to have thinking time. Having information, and the practical intelligence to process it, are not much help if a Secretary-General never has time to properly think the issues through. This is an occupational problem for everyone in high office, but it is particularly acute for someone who has 191 heads of state and foreign ministers, just for a start, who feel they have an absolute right to waste his or her time whenever they feel like it.
One solution, much easier to say than apply is given the number of people who want to kiss the secular-papal ring for extended periods at any given time is to limit appointments to a few hours a day and relentlessly apply the 15-minute rule to all of them. In my own long experience of these meetings there is never much more than one or two substantive things that need to be said on either side, and the rest is padding and politesse. No doubt a good deal of time could also be saved in not spending hours listening to set piece speeches, in the Security Council and elsewhere, that could much more quickly be read if they are worth absorbing at all.
But of course to follow any of these prescriptions too enthusiastically would be to quickly acquire a Boutros-Ghali-like reputation for aloofness or arrogance, or for machine-like inhumanity. Gossip and schmoozing, and time-wasting in formal public sessions and events, is what makes the political world go round: The Secretary-General is part of that world whether he or she like it or not, and ignores the conventions at his or her peril. So the problem of thinking time will continue. More time at home in the bath may be the only answer.
The forth is Secretary-General have moral courage. Where personal support becomes most important is when one goes right out on a limb, saying or doing what is absolutely the right thing, because it’s the right thing, but knowing that you will generate a firestorm in the process. The really first-rate Secretaries-General are those who have been prepared to put themselves and their reputations absolutely on the line in this respect moral authority doesn’t come from preaching bland nostrums that will offend no one, but from taking real risks.
&
nbsp; The most recent Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, gave some outstanding examples of just this kind of moral courage. I’m thinking in particular of his General Assembly speech in 1999 challenging not only the whole international community to confront the challenge of genocide, atrocity crimes, and humanitarian intervention, but the developing countries in particular to recognize that their sovereignty was not absolute in this respect; and then later-on, to spread the outrage even-handedly, his clear-eyed statement (albeit first uttered somewhat accidentally) that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was illegal as a matter of international law, and his determination to open up the issue of Security Council permanent membership, knowing the chances of change were slight, and that this was absolutely no way to win the affection of any member of the permanent members.
That’s moral courage on the high-ground issues, but there is plenty of scope for courage on more common peace and security issues. Despite Thomas Franck’s encouragement in his chapter, there may not be all that much hope for a Secretary-General saying an outright “no” when member states seem determined to follow some unpalatable or undeliverable course, but there is certainly scope for push-back, rather than timid reflex acquiescence; the best Secretaries-General have always been willing and able to do that.
Lastly, the final ingredient in my wish-list echoes a theme already raised by others is what a Secretary-General needs to be effective in peace and security issues, as elsewhere, is a single seven-year term. Although some would argue that this is exaggerated, in my view the stresses and tensions and pressures that are associated with a reappointment process is particularly after Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s experience showed that there is nothing automatic about it — are just not conducive to the kind of consistent, clear-sighted, courageous leadership that a Secretary-General needs to be able to show. The pressures on the office, and the office-holder, from multiple directions are likely to be enough to ensure that a Secretary-General freed from the anxiety of reappointment will not be a loose cannon. Those pressures of course are what have worked to constrain past Secretaries-General in second and final terms from going completely off the rails. (And the reality of that second term discipline now is the answer to those who say a single term limit means no discipline at all.)
In a world where a rule-based international order is constantly at risk, the virtues of cooperative internationalism have to be constantly asserted and the effectiveness of multilateralism needs to be constantly demonstrated, the real worry is not that a Secretary-General will be too loose a cannon, but that he or she will too uptight a one to play the strong leadership role that is needed from this great office.
References
Evans, G. (n.d.). New York University School of Law. Retrieved March 16, 2016, from Qualities of an Effective Secretary-General: http://www.iilj.org/oldbak/research/CommentQualitiesofanEffectiveSecretary-General.html
Holmes, K. R. (2003, October 21). Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved March 14, 2016, from The Challenges Facing United Nations Today: An American View: http://www.cfr.org/international-organizations-and-alliances/challenges-facing-united-nations-today-american-view/p6451#
United Nations. (2016, March 13). The Role of The Secretary-General. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from http://www.un.org/sg/sg_role.shtml
United Nations. (2016, March 6). Wikipedia. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from United Nations: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations
Vriens, C1.. Z. (2011, September 21). Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved March 14, 2016, from The Role of the Secretary-General: http://www.cfr.org/international-organizations-and-alliances/role-un-secretary-general/p12348