Next UN secretary-general faces Gaza genocide accusation, climate crisis, AI threats

Three straw polls yield no frontrunner; first-ever contingency plans under way

The next United Nations secretary-general will face a combination of challenges unlike any predecessor has dealt with, Steve Bloomfield reported in The Guardian on Sunday. The person chosen will confront a UN commission of inquiry’s accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, while the UN has effectively been reduced to the role of bystander, pushed out by Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace.” Two of the Security Council’s permanent members — the United States and Russia — are engaged in wars of choice that have no end in sight, Bloomfield reported. The climate crisis is creating a cascade of new humanitarian disasters, and new security threats from the unregulated rise of artificial intelligence are emerging, according to Bloomfield.

All of this is happening in a world in which the very principles of the United Nations — multilateralism, a rules-based order, and international law — are under threat, The Guardian reported.

The selection coincides with the annual UN General Assembly gathering of world leaders in New York this week and next. Three informal straw polls among the 15 diplomats who will choose the next secretary-general have produced no frontrunner, and opposition to the two leading candidates rose in the third straw poll, held Friday, according to Bloomfield. The two leading candidates are Guyana’s former foreign minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Costa Rica’s former vice-president Rebeca Grynspan. UN experts told The Guardian that no candidate has excited broad support among member states, though both could make good secretary-generals.

Any successful candidate must secure the approval of all five permanent Security Council members — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China — each of whom holds veto power. That means the eventual winner will need the personal backing of Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump has said nothing publicly about his preference, but that could change in his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday or in a social media post, according to The Guardian.

For the first time in the organization’s 80-year history, “serious discussions are quietly taking place about what would happen if no secretary-general is chosen at all,” The Guardian reported. Contingency plans under consideration include asking Guterres to stay on, or asking a collection of senior UN officials to serve in administrative roles until a candidate is found. Either way, The Guardian reported, it would leave the UN rudderless at a time it needs to be anything but.

The selection unfolds against a backdrop of escalating tensions between the Trump administration and the United Nations. Earlier this year, Trump announced the United States would withdraw from 31 UN organizations, including bodies responsible for addressing climate change and women’s health, according to The Guardian. In July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration wanted to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court “brick by brick,” the newspaper reported. The abrupt closure of the US Agency for International Development “led to deaths around the world,” The Guardian reported.

The establishment of Trump’s parallel “Board of Peace” sparked fears that it could be used to supplant the United Nations itself, according to The Guardian. The body coincides with a UN financial crisis: Guterres warned during the summer that the organization faces “imminent financial collapse” because of unpaid member-state dues, much of it owed by the United States.

Despite the tensions, the United Nations continues to carry out significant operations. The organization maintains 11 peacekeeping missions staffed by more than 50,000 personnel in some of the world’s most dangerous regions, according to The Guardian. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs remains the principal venue for negotiating aid access in war zones, including Sudan. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is the only body that “manages to focus international attention on the greatest crisis the world is facing,” The Guardian reported.

This year’s General Assembly passed two resolutions that The Guardian described as “landmark”: one recognizing the transatlantic slave trade as a crime, and another adopting a new world map that “correctly recognises Africa’s size.” The candidates’ positions on those votes are unknown, as is their stance on the war in Ukraine and on Israel’s actions in Gaza, where a UN commission of inquiry has accused Israel of committing genocide.

The United Kingdom has not yet expressed a preference and has not voted for any candidate in the first three straw polls, The Guardian reported. Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband, who are scheduled to be in New York this week for the General Assembly, are weighing their positions, the newspaper said. The UK and France are hoping that another candidate emerges.

Trump’s preferences remain unclear. The New York Post reported in July that Trump wanted FIFA President Gianni Infantino to receive the job — a scenario The Guardian said had “next to no chance” of succeeding. European diplomats told The Guardian they fear “a Trump-backed dark horse — possibly one without a diplomatic background — may emerge in the coming weeks.” Trump could also signal a preference in his Tuesday speech or in a social media post, the newspaper noted.

The current selection comes ten years after the election of António Guterres of Portugal, who was widely welcomed as a “shot in the arm” for the United Nations after the “low-energy leadership” of South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon, according to The Guardian. In his previous role as the UN’s refugee chief, Guterres had been “an outspoken activist” who pledged to speak up for the world’s most vulnerable people. A month after his election, Trump took office for his first term as US president.

A new secretary-general could serve for up to ten years, of which eight would fall in a post-Trump White House, The Guardian noted. But the newspaper cautioned that even without Trump in office, the position will be “an almost impossible job.” The UN’s financial crisis is unlikely to resolve soon, severe budget cuts are anticipated, and “there will be no easy return to the 1990s and early 2000s, when the UN was at the heart of world events,” The Guardian reported.

The Guardian reported that “depending on the choice” the 15 diplomats make, the decision “could be looked back at as the moment that the crumbling international rules-based order began to be rebuilt — or when it slid irretrievably into irrelevance.” The 15 diplomats responsible for the choice are expected to announce their decision in the coming weeks.