An Opportunity for Statesmanship and a Moment for Greatness
An appeal to the Permanent Five of the UN Security Council
An Open Letter to The Permanent 5 of the UN Security Council regarding the selection of the new Secretary-General by Victor Angelo and Sukehiro Hasegawa, former UN Special Representatives of the Secretary-General
LISBON & TOKYO—You are approaching a decision that will shape the United Nations, and the future of international cooperation, for a generation. The straw poll of 16 October left every candidate facing opposition from at least one of you, including the candidates most widely supported by the other members of the Security Council. We do not see this as a failure. It may instead be an opening: a chance to step back from the calculations of the moment and to seek, together, a leader whom all of you, and the world, can trust. It is an opportunity for statesmanship.
The wider membership has given you a clear signal. At the 81st General Assembly, meeting under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation,” 113 heads of state and government named three concerns above all others: the governance of artificial intelligence, the reform of the United Nations, and the choice of its next leader. They hope for a Secretary-General who can restore trust. You alone are in a position to answer that hope.
The challenges ahead are grave. Rivalry among the great powers is sharpening, and wars are multiplying. Nuclear arms control is unravelling, with New START gone and no successor in sight. Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than any rules can follow, while climate disruption and widening inequality add to the strain. Yet there are also signs of hope. President Trump has expressed his wish to meet President Putin and President Xi to discuss denuclearization. The United States and China have agreed to open a dialogue on the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence, with a channel for managing AI-related incidents. These are welcome steps. They show that even the most powerful nations recognize that none of them can meet these threats alone. What begins among a few must, in time, be carried forward by all, and that is what the United Nations exists to make possible.
Such a time calls for more than sound administration. It calls for strategic judgement, political courage and moral authority: a Secretary-General able to support and build on such initiatives, and to work with each of you on nuclear restraint and on keeping human beings in control of decisions to use force. Such a person may at times be inconvenient. Yet that same independence is what gives the office its credibility, and makes it most valuable to you. The Charter opens with “We the Peoples.” The Secretary-General serves best as the custodian of its principles, trusted by all because beholden to none.
As you weigh the candidates, we would respectfully suggest a single question: who is best placed to rebuild trust in international cooperation, and to bring governments and citizens together for the common good? We hope, too, that the person you choose will renew the Organization itself, making it more effective, more accountable and closer to the peoples in whose name it was founded.
We write to you because we believe in what you are capable of. At decisive moments, each of your nations has shown the world its best self. China was the first nation to sign the Charter at San Francisco. The United States gave the United Nations its name and hosted its founding. The United Kingdom, through the Atlantic Charter, helped envision a peace in which all nations could live in safety. France gave the world the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. And the peoples of the Soviet Union paid a terrible price, greater than any other, to defeat fascism and make that founding possible. These were not acts of narrow interest. They were acts of greatness.
In 1945 your predecessors, having lived through two world wars, built an institution to restrain the very dynamics we see returning today. You now carry their responsibility, and you have the chance to show that greatness again. The survival of humanity may well depend on whether the most powerful nations can rise above their immediate interests. No one can require this of you. That is precisely why it would mean so much.
May you choose a Secretary-General for the world: a leader who can renew the promise of San Francisco and make the United Nations, once more, an indispensable force for peace, justice and human progress.
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Victor Angelo Former UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UN Under-Secretary-General
Sukehiro Hasegawa Former UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Timor-Leste and UN Resident Coordinator for Rwanda
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