UN needs a chief who can restore its moral authority

Why in the News

The United Nations (UN) is preparing to choose its 10th Secretary-General (UNSG) to succeed António Guterres, as wars, artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change strain institutions designed for 1945. The choice decides whether the UN keeps managing the consequences of global disorder or begins confronting its causes.

What is the Secretary-General meant to be?

1. What the office is: The UNSG, the UN’s chief administrative officer, is appointed by the General Assembly on the Security Council’s recommendation (Article 97 of the UN Charter). With no army, it works through persuasion.
2. Hammarskjöld’s mission: Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish economist and diplomat, served as UNSG and died in a 1961 plane crash near Ndola, in present-day Zambia. He was on a mission to negotiate an end to fighting in Congo.
3. The takeaway: His death fixed an image of the UNSG as an independent diplomat placing moral authority between nations and war. That role, moving toward danger rather than waiting for catastrophe, is now badly needed and under threat.

Why is the UN struggling to keep up?

1. Record conflict: State-based conflicts in 2025 reached their highest number since 1946.
2. Changed nature of war: Modern wars draw in outside states, new technology and great power rivalries.
3. Rules lagging: AI is reshaping security and economic power faster than governments can set safeguards. Climate commitments remain inadequate.

What should the next UNSG do on AI and climate?

1. Risks of AI: The technology that speeds discovery can also spread disinformation, automate cyberattacks, intensify surveillance and weaken human control over military decisions.
2. Scientific panel: The UN has created a 40-member Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, but it can only advise, not make rules that bind states.
3. Enforceable baseline: The next UNSG should seek a few enforceable minimum global rules:
   • mandatory safety evaluations for high-risk systems;
   • disclosure of serious AI incidents;
   • reliable identification of synthetic media (AI-generated images, audio and video);
   • meaningful human control over decisions involving lethal force.
4. Climate accountability: Through country-level assessments of emissions, adaptation and financing, the UNSG can expose the gap between what countries promise and what they do. Summits then become implementation reviews that check delivery.
5. Adaptation finance gap: International public finance for adaptation (measures to live with climate impacts) reached only $26 billion in 2023, far below what developing countries need.

Can a UN built in 1945 keep its legitimacy?

1. Frozen Council: The UN Security Council (UNSC) still reserves permanent membership and the veto (the power to block any decision) for five states, reflecting the settlement of the Second World War.
2. Africa left out: Africa’s 54 countries are about 28% of UN membership, yet the continent has no permanent seat, which weakens the legitimacy of UN decisions.

Challenges

1. Veto over the choice: Because the Security Council recommends the candidate, any permanent member can block a UNSG likely to confront it.
2. Persuasion without power: The office cannot enforce, so results depend on states choosing to cooperate.
3. Funding squeeze: Late payment of dues leaves the Secretariat short. Eg. Arrears hit a record $1.57 billion in April 2026.

Way Forward

1. UN mediation corps: Create a permanent corps of diplomats, regional specialists, ceasefire negotiators and humanitarian access experts that deploys as tensions rise.
2. Open selection: Use General Assembly dialogues with candidates to test each one’s plan on AI, climate and mediation.
3. African permanent seats: Expand the Security Council’s permanent category to include Africa.

Conclusion

The UN’s weakness lies less in a shortage of bodies than in an office holding moral authority without power over the states that choose it. Whether the permanent members accept a Secretary-General willing to confront them on war, AI and climate is the test of this selection.

Key numbers

1. State-based conflicts (2025): 65, across 35 countries.
2. Adaptation need: $310 to 365 billion a year for developing countries by 2035.
3. Youngest UNSG: Hammarskjöld, appointed in 1953 at 47.

About Reform of the United Nations

1. UN80 Initiative: Launched by the Secretary-General in 2025 to modernise the UN through workstreams on efficiency, mandate review and structural change.
2. Amendment route: Article 108 of the UN Charter requires two-thirds of members both to vote for an amendment in the General Assembly and to ratify it, including every permanent member.
3. Competing models: The G4 (India, Brazil, Germany, Japan) seeks new permanent seats. The Uniting for Consensus group, including Pakistan and Italy, wants only new non-permanent seats.
4. Ezulwini Consensus: Africa’s common position demands at least two permanent seats with the veto.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026] Consider the following statements about platforms for multilateral co-operation: 1. The ‘Colombo Process’ is a regional consultative process in which member states take binding decisions by consensus. 2. The ‘Abu Dhabi Dialogue’ is a voluntary non-binding consultative process among Asian countries of labour origin and destination to facilitate regional cooperation on contractual labour mobility. 3. The ‘Global Forum for Migration and Development’, created upon the proposal of a former UN Secretary General, is a voluntary forum whose decisions are non-binding. (a) 1, 2 and 3 (b) 1 and 3 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 2 only ANSWER: C”