UN: Senior Appointments

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, this debate could not be timelier. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has done the House a favour by enabling us to discuss this important set of issues well ahead of the UN election process getting fully under way. The year 2016 is an election year at the UN, when a new Secretary-General is likely to be chosen, and on past precedent he or she will effectively be chosen for two five-year terms because that has been the practice, although not invariably so. Following the choice of the Secretary-General, other senior appointments will need to be made, including that of a deputy Secretary-General.

No one who has been through one of these election cycles, as I did in 1991 when Boutros Boutros-Ghali was appointed, can possibly believe that the process is an optimal one. There is much furtive manoeuvring both within and between regional groupings. Promises are made, often contradictory ones, and the possibility of vetoes hangs over the heads of the participants. In the past, this process has led to some good appointments and some less good ones, but unlike the noble Lord, Lord Desai, I will not categorise who falls into which category. However, the system could be greatly improved without the need for reform of the charter, which is clearly out of reach in the timescale we are discussing, even if it was desirable. Here are four suggestions which I hope the Government will consider. The UK as a permanent member of the Security Council has good influence, but only if it makes up its mind and deploys that influence skilfully and in good time.

First, and perhaps most ambitiously, it really would make sense for the Secretary-General to be appointed for a seven-year, non-renewable term. Several other noble Lords have put forward that idea, which originated with Sir Brian Urquhart some years ago. That would free up the incumbent from the often unseemly lobbying that goes on for a second term and which stretches right forward from the date of his reappointment. Secondly, I suggest, along with several other noble Lords, that the whole process needs to become much more transparent. It would make good sense for every candidate to go through some kind of open hustings in which they could set out their position, listen to the views of member states, and respond to them.

Thirdly, it would be good if each candidate could be asked to set out in writing their own priorities for the development of the organisation. That would have the great advantage of meaning that whoever is eventually chosen would arrive in the post with something approximating a mandate. Fourthly—this is probably the most important suggestion but also rather difficult to achieve—it really is high time to break the practice of regional pre-emption, which has dominated the choice of the last three Secretaries-General. If applied at the beginning of the process, it effectively excludes a large proportion of the world’s population from consideration at the outset. It is, frankly, an absurd way of handling things.

Of course, over time the post must rotate regionally. It cannot remain the preserve of one particular region, as was the case for the first two Secretaries-General, who were both western Europeans. However, this need not, and should not, be done in such a way as to exclude any candidate from any of the five regional groupings outside the one that was pre-empted. I am sorry to say—this was recognised by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner—that if you are against regional pre-emption, you have to be against gender pre-emption. I admit that gender pre-emption excludes half the world’s population, which is a bit less than you exclude on regional pre-emption, but it is still not the right way to proceed. I absolutely agree that should a woman come forward as Secretary-General now, that would be a tremendously good thing, but it should not be achieved by pre-emption from the outset.

I know that a major effort is being made by east Europeans to promote regional pre-emption, as it is the only region that has never provided a Secretary-General. I wonder whether that is in their best interests, given the real risk of a truculent and more assertive Russia intervening at some stage in the process with a veto. In any event, I am quite sure that the practice of regional pre-emption is not in the interest of the organisation as a whole, nor of any of its regions.

Some would like to see a change in the balance between the Security Council and the General Assembly in making appointments. I doubt, frankly, whether that is achievable.

As to other senior appointments, it is surely right that Britain should, from time to time, aspire to one of the top posts. British incumbents have, in fact, over the life of the United Nations, had an impressive track record. But we really must rid ourselves of the practice of giving the Secretary-General only one candidate. He needs to have a choice; it is really demeaning to suggest that we should choose the person to put forward and then tell him that he has to accept them. That practice came to grief quite recently, as was said, over the appointment of the humanitarian post. I am very glad that Stephen O’Brien was appointed, and I am very glad that the British Government put forward more than one person. I hope that in future they will always do that. I hope, too, that we will not overlook UN officials of British nationality serving professionally in the UN; they are sometimes of the very highest quality but they tend to be overlooked when it comes to putting forward proposals for very senior posts.

It would be good to hear how the Minister reacts to those four proposals. The subject is, I know, sensitive, but it is also important if the UN—which is, I believe, of real value to us—to function more effectively than it has until now.