The Post–Cold War Secretary-General: Opportunities and Constraints

Edward Newman is an academic programme associate at the United Nations University, Tokyo. He is the author of The UN Secretary-General from the Cold War to the New Era: A Global Peace and Security Mandate? (Macmillan, 1998). The comments expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the UNU or the United Nations.

In the early years of the United Nations the concept of an international civil service was still novel, even revolutionary. The “great experiment”¹ had survived the League of Nations and there was a renewal of the pioneer spirit. The civil service of the United Nations represented a “new human category”² which would be independent, impartial and public spirited. It would underpin an international society of rules, justice, progress and institutions. This faith was embedded in a progressive conception of international organisation which was seen as a natural extension of the organising apparatus of human society in general. At the pinnacle of the new UN civil service would be the “international leadership” of the secretary-general.

 

The historical context is essential to understanding this ethos. In the aftermath of the Second World War there was widespread hope that the United Nations would help create a better world. And with the end of the Cold War many people looked to the secretary-general’s office to harness opportunities for progress in multilateralism and to demonstrate leadership based upon a revival of liberal internationalism. However, when Boutros Boutros-Ghali wrote of the secretary-general’s “global leadership”³ he aroused scepticism, suspicion, even hostility.

 

Significantly, this response came not only from the obvious conservative quarters,⁴ but also more quietly from within the UN Secretariat itself. Boutros-Ghali was finally ousted by the United States in 1996 in a reaction against the excesses and experimentation of the United Nations in the early 1990s, a reaction shared by many other countries. His undoing resulted in part from his personality and his forthright approach to his office. But more importantly the ideal of “international society”, within which the United Nations’ civil service is embedded, proved to be an unrealistic concept with which to approach post–Cold War peace and security issues. Too much faith had been placed in the revival of liberal internationalism and the “New World Order” ethos, plunging the United Nations into volatile situations with which it was ill equipped to deal. This lesson was learned the hard way, and Boutros-Ghali’s dismissal was part of the learning process as a backlash of caution and realism swept away many of the aspirations and hopes that internationalists had invested in multilateralism.

 

At one level Boutros-Ghali’s tenure reflected a failure of international, or perhaps even supranational, leadership in the face of systemic and great-power constraints. At another, Boutros-Ghali had become irreparably caught up in domestic US politics and a number of personality clashes.⁵ Into this turbulence Kofi Annan was appointed as a quiet insider. He was seen as someone who would heal the wounds and calm the voyage of the United Nations into a “post-Westphalian” world where the meanings and bases of security are evolving, where the utility of state sovereignty is increasingly challenged and where the moral sphere of international politics is widening and deepening (but not without friction). Can the secretary-general guide the United Nations as it seeks to adapt to demands and circumstances quite different from those at its creation? Can he address the widening agenda of peace and security? Or is the secretary-general inevitably an adjunct of great-power manoeuvring, irrespective of personal leadership qualities?

The Secretary-General’s Office

During the drafting of the UN Charter, debate on the nature of the secretaryship-general divided between those who favoured the apolitical administrative model of an international civil servant and those who sought a more activist, political role for the office, seeing it as the “promoter, inspirer, living expression of international cooperation, [the] continuous symbol of the international outlook”.⁶ The end result was a (sometimes uncomfortable) synthesis of both conceptions.

 

The articles of the charter relating directly to the secretary-general are 7 and 97–101 inclusive. Article 7 states that the secretariat, and inter alia the secretary-general, is a “principal organ” of the United Nations. This confers authority on the post, for it implies a responsibility on the secretary-general’s part to uphold the aims and purposes of the charter independently of the mandates given to the office by the other organs of the United Nations. Article 97 relates to the appointment of the secretary-general and the administrative status of the office. The Security Council has a veto on appointments. In practice, the post is filled through a dubious trade-off by the great powers. With the decline of superpower conflict one might have hoped for reforms to make appointments more transparent and methodical. Yet Kofi Annan’s appointment, however welcome, did nothing to suggest a rationalisation of the process, which remains symptomatic of the micromanaging attitude of certain states towards the secretaryship-general.

 

The substantive elements of Article 98 hold that the office of secretary-general must perform functions that are entrusted to it by the General Assembly, Security Council, or other principal UN organs. This has been a significant instrument for delegating authority and tasks to the secretary-general. It has been amply demonstrated in the sphere of international peace and security how delegation can move the secretary-general from the periphery to the heart of decision making, sometimes when the other UN organs have been unwilling or unable to act.

 

Article 99 states that 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” (italics added). Article 99 forms the basis of a great deal of the secretary‑general’s political status and activities, for it can give, in the words of the second secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjöld, “by necessary implication, a broad discretion to conduct inquiries and to engage in informal diplomatic activity in regard to matters which may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.⁷ In this sense a liberal interpretation of Article 99 can grant the secretary-general wide leeway for activity and initiative in the field of preventive diplomacy and early warning.

 

Article 100 seeks to ensure the secretary-general’s independence and impartiality and is the constitutional element which underpins the political basis of the office. This constitutional element is merely a platform—in fact a compromise—upon which the secretary-general’s role has developed in practice and it depends on a number of variables. The secretary-general has a fluctuating room for manoeuvre, but it is not possible to identify, let alone evaluate in a comparative sense, all the different factors which influence his activities. In particular, it is difficult to assess the impact of personality. Clearly, personalities do shape political processes and history, yet there is a multitude of external factors over which a secretary-general has little or no control. However tempting it is to view the secretaryship-general as an issue of personality, a historical perspective indicates that the office acts within undefined and shifting power structures within the international system.

The Cold War

In the decades following the United Nations’ founding, the development of the secretary-general’s activities was conditioned by international political trends, for example, the dynamics of the Cold War and détente, the proliferation of states in the international system and the burgeoning friction between North and South. These trends were reflected in the organs of the United Nations and the resulting environment often constrained the secretary-general. Countless issues were excluded from the UN agenda and were out of bounds to his office because of the political conflict that pervaded the Security Council. Yet the failure of collective security, somewhat paradoxically, raised the office to prominence when it was delegated mandates with which the council could not deal. Within this context, the secretaryship-general accumulated a shaky tradition of “good offices” in which the secretary-general or his representatives acted as an impartial third party to a dispute, facilitating communication and providing possible solutions. Eventually, the secretary-general came to direct peacekeeping operations, to engage in the prevention, mediation and settlement of conflicts and to undertake diplomatic “face-saving” missions.

 

The first secretary-general, Trygve Lie (1946–53), felt that his office should be active in pursuing the United Nations’ interests despite the constraints of the Cold War. His style was vocal and assertive, and as such he established a number of norms for the post. He insisted on the secretary-general’s investigative and preventive responsibilities and fought a successful but bitter fight to have a say—or rights of communication—in the proceedings of the General Assembly and Security Council. However, although he developed a political role for his office, his activist approach attracted the ill will of those parties whom he antagonised. Eventually, Lie’s stance on the Korean War won him the hostility of the Soviet Union and his position became untenable.

 

Lie’s successor, Dag Hammarskjöld (1953–61), demanded greater room for manoeuvre for the secretary-general and strengthened his good offices missions and his role in mediation and preventive diplomacy. By such “creative administration”, he sought to exploit the gap left by Security Council deadlock, “filling any vacuum which may appear in the systems which the Charter and traditional diplomacy provide for the safeguard of peace and security”.⁸ Hammarskjöld’s tenure thus hinged on a historic improvisation: the collective security mechanisms of the United Nations were flawed, so the secretary-general filled the vacuum in the fields of international mediation and peacekeeping. In the Middle East, Laos and in the Congo in particular, he sought a creative approach that would prevent regional conflict escalating in the context of superpower hostility. He took advantage of a margin of freedom on a number of occasions. R. S. Jordan has written that in the UN peacekeeping operation in Egypt Hammarskjöld was “a commander-in-chief of his own army”.⁹ However, this approach was to land him in controversy in the Congo, where he inflamed Cold War sensitivities and aroused suspicion about the concept of “creative administration”.

 

After Hammarskjöld, the United Nations was enveloped by a quagmire of paralysis and disillusionment. From the early 1960s until the latter half of the 1980s, powerful states increasingly put the organisation at the periphery of their foreign policy. The secretaries-general could work only within severe restraints. The tenures of U Thant (1961–71) and Kurt Waldheim (1972–81) must be seen in this context. Waldheim’s incumbency in particular was conditioned by a clash of status quo great power and revisionist Third World forces against the backdrop of Cold War antagonisms. The same environment hampered the first half of Javier Pérez de Cuéllar’s tenure (1982–91).

 

The 1980s witnessed the culmination of a number of trends: disillusionment towards and within the United Nations; the heightened intensity of the Cold War; increased manoeuvring between the East–West and North–South blocs; a reversion to unilateralism; the seeming inability of the Security Council to address a number of threats to international peace and security; the de facto abstention of key UN members from certain programmes and agencies; and severe financial problems. The secretary-general was effectively thwarted, both by major countries’ lack of support for the United Nations, and by the involvement of Security Council members in many regional conflicts. The institutional reforms urged by Pérez de Cuéllar for maintaining peace and security went largely unheeded; the innovative Office for Research and the Collection of Information foundered on the suspicions of member states.

 

From 1987, however, the international political tide changed and the United Nations’ activities flourished. With the decline of Cold War hostility the United Nations and the secretary-general played a major role in facilitating the settlement of a number of conflicts in which the superpowers had been involved. This climate of co-operation was manifested in the Security Council when it applied collective leverage in conflicts such as El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran–Iraq, Cambodia and the Western Sahara. These were addressed by the permanent members of the council in tandem with, and often under the auspices of, the secretary-general. Thus, from a position of frustration and in some cases even irrelevance before 1986/7, the secretary-general came to be a voice of authority in the roles of creative mediation, face-saving and facilitation.

The New Era

In the 1990s the secretary-general’s office and the United Nations faced fundamental questions about the roles of international organisations as the practical and legal bases upon which they had been formed were challenged. The office was a focal point of post–Cold War multilateral turbulence as the United Nations struggled to adapt to rapidly evolving circumstances. In some ways, the secretary-general’s position was enhanced by the wider international agenda of peace and security, the United Nations’ burgeoning activities and developments in political–military thinking in the secretariat and the Security Council. At the same time, however, the United Nations and its secretary-general reflected the inherent volatility of the international system. This forced UN members and the international secretariat to reconsider the functions and limitations of the world body, a process which continues to this day.

 

The United Nations’ role in the spheres of peace and security has been unstable in the “new era”, often reflecting the political and material constraints of multilateral fatigue and widely divergent views of what the United Nations should and should not be. Fragmentation, integration, globalisation, the evolution of state sovereignty and the demands of the new security agenda are all at play in international politics, creating a much more complex environment than existed when the New World Order was first proclaimed by US President George Bush in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.

 

These processes were reflected in the multifaceted and sometimes paradoxical functions of the secretaryship-general under Boutros-Ghali (1991–6), and somewhat less so under his successor Kofi Annan (1997–). Boutros-Ghali inherited dramatic opportunities in the field of peace and security and increased the political standing of his office. He contributed to UN efforts to shape traditional politics in areas previously considered to be the reserve of the great powers. He also played a significant role in the context of democratisation and domestic transition worldwide. As a result, there are undoubtedly fewer “no-go” areas for the secretary-general than ever before.

 

But Boutros-Ghali and the United Nations overreached themselves. Their fortunes began to turn in 1993. Earlier pledges of support from many members were forgotten as the cost—in human and material terms—of the United Nations’ “new” agenda was realised. The United Nations’ limitations were demonstrated most pointedly in Bosnia and Somalia. Ideas of nation building were abandoned and an atmosphere of cautious realism and multilateral fatigue pervaded the organisation. Not so long after President Bush had proclaimed the New World Order and his commitment to the UN “mission”, many politicians in the United States and the West became acutely wary of collective internationalism as a “slippery slope” and a “recipe for chaos”. The Clinton administration shared this caution. The starkest illustration of its attitude is the presidential directive of 1994 which imposed severe constraints on the use of US soldiers in UN operations.

 

Boutros-Ghali had sought to draw the international community’s attention to issues outside the mainstream agenda, urging the United Nations and its chief sponsors in a direction different from that to which their instinctively realpolitik outlook might steer them. He envisaged the secretary-general as the zenith of the global system, “an impartial figure with a global mandate”.¹⁰ The mission of such a secretary-general would be to serve human needs, rather than those of states. Yet clearly the secretary-general’s office remains largely at the bidding of the leading status quo actors. The post–Cold War secretaryship-general represents a delicate navigation between these two poles: a combination—perhaps a paradox—of opportunities and constraints.

 

It is difficult to judge if Boutros-Ghali went “too far” in attempting to elevate his office, or if he was unfortunate to have been encumbered with a series of unmanageable tasks during his tenure. The United States claimed that it blocked his reappointment because he had failed to make enough progress in reforming the United Nations and because he had initially committed himself to a single term of office. There was also a strong element of domestic politics in the decision. However, underlying these motivations was a fundamental ideological divergence between the US administration’s cautious new thinking and Boutros-Ghali’s internationalist rhetoric. He was tainted—irrespective of whether he deserved it—by the miscalculations of UN experimentation, assertive multilateralism and the over-extension of the organisation in the early 1990s.

 

Boutros-Ghali saw himself as the victim of unilateralist and isolationist US conservatives who caricatured him as an obsessive internationalist. He was unable to defend himself against these unfair attacks because he failed to communicate with, or fully understand, the US political system. Most notably, after the United States had made clear its opposition to his reappointment, he lobbied internationally for support, appearing to believe that Washington would change its mind if he returned with some form of “global mandate”. To believe that he could continue to work with the United States in such circumstances was to fail to understand the lessons of history—not least the example of Trygve Lie. Moreover, by attempting to pit himself and the rest of the world against the United States, he demonstrated himself capable of egoism and romanticism. While he realised that the United Nations had been engulfed by “the fire of realism”,¹¹ he did not want to accept that he had been made a sacrifice to this conflagration.

A Proactive Role

Two key developments characterised the secretary-general’s office in the 1990s. The first—most notable under Boutros-Ghali—was the elevation of the office in the spheres of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping, offering the secretary-general opportunities for leadership and activism. The secretary-general’s enhanced role was evident in domestic peace operations and in good offices missions. He was able to exert pressure upon the Security Council and influence policy, express normative opinions, employ the leverage of public statements, involve his office in the use of force and initiate a number of preventive measures.

 

In Somalia, Boutros-Ghali pushed experimental ideas of nation building in the belief that the Security Council—and particularly the United States—would continue to support New World Order ideas of multilateralism and democratisation. He appeared to take advantage of a somewhat undecided US foreign policy at a transitional stage. The Somalia episode saw the secretary-general assume a policy-influencing, almost a policy-making, role. Boutros-Ghali played a key part in escalating the UN operation in Somalia (Unosom), first with the US-led Unified Task Force and then with Unosom II. In Unosom II he held significant powers under Chapter VII of the charter at an operational and co-ordinating level, powers that involved the use of peace-enforcement techniques. The secretary-general directed the use of force in a stark departure from the classical model of the international civil service. (Hammarskjöld assumed comparable duties in the Congo, but not with the explicit Security Council backing which existed for Somalia). However, it transpired that this position of authority was precarious. The support of the council, and most importantly the United States, was fragile. In addition, the use of force and the abandonment of impartiality undoubtedly affected the secretary-general’s ability to mediate in the Somalia conflict and possibly tainted the reputation of the office in a wider sense. In Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Burundi and a number of other cases there was a perceptible rise in the secretary-general’s profile, but there were always constraints and frustrations as well.

 

Yugoslavia epitomised the complexities and hazards of multifaceted peace operations in civil conflicts. The secretary-general’s position was commensurate with this. Beginning with an effort to assist the distribution of humanitarian relief, the mandate of the UN Protection Force for the former Yugoslavia (Unprofor) snowballed with the passing of endless resolutions—many under or alluding to Chapter VII—which had little practical or political effect. This credibility gap between the resolutions and the will to enforce them frustrated and imperilled the UN operation. As the ultimate field director, the secretary-general attracted a portion of the blame. In general, the Yugoslavia mission constituted an example of the secretary-general’s office being burdened with an unrealistic mandate as a result of exaggerated expectations and shortsightedness in New York.

 

Nevertheless, Boutros-Ghali was determined to be involved in making policy, and not only in executing it. On a number of occasions the United Nations’ mandate was developed on the basis of his assessments and reports. Finally, in May 1995 Boutros-Ghali suggested that the United Nations faced a defining moment with regard to Bosnia. He set out four options: withdrawal, greater use of force, a continuation as before, or a revision of the mandate to include only realistic tasks. Although he presented the report as a proposal of options, Boutros-Ghali was clearly advocating a course of action.

A Global Mandate

Since the 1990s the secretary-general’s good offices and preventive roles have expanded in parallel with the United Nations’ increasing involvement in post–Cold War civil strife. The United Nations’ third-party activities in Africa, Central America and the former Soviet Union—areas formerly considered the prerogative of the great powers—have been particularly important. The secretary-general has gained far more room for manoeuvre than he enjoyed during the Cold War, which precluded his office from many regional conflicts. Proactive initiatives were central to Boutros-Ghali’s “global mandate”. Preventive activities and the good offices of the secretary-general have been subject to paradoxical trends, however. Post–Cold War attitudes towards wider conceptions of peace and security have encouraged these activities, yet “multilateral fatigue” since 1993 appears to have curtailed the financial and diplomatic resources necessary to effect them.

 

Even so, Boutros-Ghali, and afterwards Kofi Annan, appeared to rule out “no-go” areas for the secretary-general’s good offices and preventive diplomacy missions. East Timor, Kashmir, Zaire/Congo, Burma, Tajikistan and Georgia (the last two among UN missions well within the traditional Russian sphere of influence) are all testaments to this. The sending of a good-will representative to the Baltic states at the time of the Soviet withdrawal was also symbolically important.

 

Developments in global thinking have also encouraged the secretary-general to make greater use of the public “pulpit” his office provides to exercise his “moral responsibility” to draw the world’s attention to issues and conflicts which might otherwise be neglected. Such actions have helped push the United Nations beyond its traditional narrow parameters. During the post-Somalia “multilateral fatigue”, Boutros-Ghali symbolised the international community’s frustration in attempting to exert moral leverage in the face of political constraints. During the atrocities in Rwanda he told the Security Council that “we have failed in our response to the agony of Rwanda, and thus have acquiesced in the continued loss of lives”.¹² In the following years, Boutros-Ghali continued to issue warnings about the time-bomb which existed around the borders of Rwanda, after the media and Security Council had largely lost interest. He called upon the Security Council either to back an international force to police the refugee camps or to support the efforts of local countries to restore law and order.

 

Similarly, in Somalia, after the withdrawal of the United Nations and with it the interest of the world’s media, Boutros-Ghali tried to maintain a UN presence in the region to keep alive hopes for reconciliation. Again, Boutros-Ghali’s alarm at the escalating ethnic polarisation in Burundi and his apparent belief that he had a responsibility to encourage “a major initiative to prevent another tragedy”¹³ were manifested in a number of ways. Most significantly, he proposed the deployment of a military force on Burundi’s border with Zaire, with a view to military intervention if necessary. Even though there was a strong case for such a pre-emptive move, the Burundi government opposed any form of military intervention. The Security Council also failed to back Boutros-Ghali’s proposal. Yet his idea worked in so far as it helped to put Burundi on the council agenda.

 

Boutros-Ghali’s declaratory activism was also demonstrated in relation to Israel, again with dubious results. He wrote of “the plight of the Palestinian people living under occupation” and the “particularly grave incident” of Israel’s deporting over four hundred Palestinians to south Lebanon in December 1992. The secretary-general was also vocal in condemning Israeli bombing of south Lebanon, suggesting its intention was to displace the civilian population. After Israel shelled a UN post in Qana, southern Lebanon, in April 1996, killing approximately one hundred civilians sheltering there, Boutros-Ghali released a report that implied that Israeli forces might have deliberately targeted the post. The decision to issue this report was a bold step, but it could not have helped the United Nations’ relationship with Israel or the United States.

Limited Independence

While the first main transformation of the secretary-general’s role in the post–Cold War era has been to make his office more proactive, the second, paradoxically, has involved a narrowing of his scope for independent action—a result of Security Council cohesion (however superficial) and leadership. According to the late Sir Anthony Parsons, a former permanent representative of Britain to the United Nations,

 

the more the co-operation between the great powers, the less the room for political manoeuvre for the secretary-general. If you regard the [permanent five] as the board of directors, the secretary-general will always be the company secretary. When the board is unanimous, the company secretary should have clear instructions, his job being to carry them out efficiently.¹⁴

 

In Iraq, the implementation of the 1991 Gulf War settlement has ensured the continued dominance of the activist states—particularly the United States and Britain—which trounced Iraqi forces during Desert Storm. The secretary-general has been involved in implementing the United Nations’ mandatory regulations, yet his freedom of action has been restricted, commensurate with the sensitive political and geostrategic agenda of the activist states and the explicit nature of the Security Council’s demands. Beneath the surface, the permanent five have not remained united on sanctions against Iraq. Nevertheless, the secretary-general’s role has been to arrange the implementation of the council’s terms, and no more.

 

The secretary-general’s involvement in efforts to persuade Libya to surrender those suspected of the Lockerbie bombing is a similar example of how the directorship of the permanent five—or perhaps of the United States—has limited the scope of the secretary-general’s position. This limitation has possibly contributed to the great delay in bringing about the trial of the suspects. In Haiti, although the secretary-general appeared to have a major role in an important operation, it was again in the context of a US rather than UN agenda. Even so, he did participate in a number of important processes in the Haiti operation, either personally or through his representatives. He was involved in mediation (alongside the Organisation of American States), influenced policy through recommendations to the Security Council and directed the UN mission which followed the US-led multinational force.

 

A further change to the role of the post–Cold War secretary-general concerns areas—such as domestic conflict management—where the United Nations has not developed a coherent doctrine, plunging the secretary-general into precarious and controversial situations. A number of multifunctional operations, such as that in the former Yugoslavia, have demonstrated this. The experiences of Unprofor illustrated the futility of mounting relief and peacekeeping missions without a cease-fire. Boutros-Ghali’s reputation was tainted along with that of the United Nations, and his position reflected the uncertainties and tensions among the external actors and the volatility of the combatants. On a personal level Boutros-Ghali’s unpopularity with the inhabitants of Sarajevo when he visited the city was symbolic of the United Nations’ failing to satisfy any of the local parties. The world body became a scapegoat for the lack of political resolution shown by the members of the Security Council. Perhaps most damaging, the secretary-general was associated with the United Nations’ (politically unavoidable) lame response to some of the atrocities committed in Bosnia. Achieving peace was the priority, even if this meant playing down the war crimes process.

 

Angola was a further example of the secretary-general being caught in the centre of a peace process thrown into disarray, in this case by the failure of the 1992 elections. Moreover, there were criticisms that, by acting as a neutral arbiter, the United Nations had strengthened Jonas Savimbi’s claim to equal status and therefore inadvertently legitimised Unita’s decision to return to war. It is a reflection of the “new era” of UN activities that the secretary-general had to shake hands with the warlord Savimbi, and thus give legitimacy to Unita, before Savimbi would irreversibly commit himself to the peace process. Few peace and security situations in the post–Cold War world—and particularly those of a domestic nature—are morally and legally clear-cut, and the secretary-general’s actions must be seen in this light. Unfortunately, the international civil service has to engage the local strongmen—whether in Angola, Bosnia or Haiti—however risky or distasteful this may at times appear.

Jeopardising Impartiality

Boutros-Ghali’s embrace of activism and his proximity to the use of force or coercion represented a major development for his office. This arose from the freedom of expression he enjoyed, the United Nations’ growing involvement in domestic conflict, the tendency of a small number of states to exploit the United Nations to further their own narrow interests, the imposition of an unprecedented number of mandatory sanctions and the increasingly interventionist agenda of multilateralism. The secretary-general’s third-party role, which had previously achieved a useful measure of independence from the deliberative organs of the United Nations, was jeopardised under Boutros-Ghali. This classical, impartial role does not sit comfortably with UN coercion, especially as the political dynamics of the Security Council largely determine how and when the organisation addresses issues. Moreover, Boutros-Ghali appeared to have a thirst for political activism, sometimes with little consideration for the cumulative implications for the secretary-general’s image.

 

Boutros-Ghali’s call for the deployment of a UN-led military force in Burundi to stem the escalation of violence there once again serves as an example. There is a post–Cold War wariness among many states in the developing world about multilateral interventions. The last thing they want is the UN secretary-general proposing a military force to intervene in their affairs. In addition, the Security Council’s leading members do not want their hands forced, or to be embarrassed, by the secretary-general’s public statements. This is especially the case in an era when the media can exert pressure upon governments and organisations to act in cases of humanitarian tragedy.

 

It would appear that Boutros-Ghali was not enough of a “known quantity” in this new world of shifting political alignments which allowed the secretary-general to act and speak on issues which might have been considered out of bounds during the Cold War. His office was less of a passive servant, and this clearly did not dovetail with the wishes of other more powerful actors.

 

In tandem with all the tumultuous changes the secretary-general’s office has undergone in the last decade, it has also continued to perform its traditional functions, formally and informally. Sometimes the political dynamics of the Security Council and General Assembly, and indeed of the wider international arena, exclude the secretary-general’s office from a meaningful role or give it an ambiguous mandate. Sometimes there is room for action. The office is occasionally undermined when its mandate conflicts with the hidden agendas and policies of member states, or when the formal unity of the council masks different or competing interests among its members, such as on Afghanistan, when the secretariat made a fruitless effort to assist in reconciliation there, and on Western Sahara.

 

The same is true with regard to Cyprus, where one can question the utility of the secretary-general’s long-running good offices mission. Security Council Resolution 939 of July 1994 requested the secretary-general to consult the Security Council, the guarantor powers (Britain, Turkey and Greece) and the leaders in Cyprus to make a “fundamental and far-reaching reflection on ways of approaching the Cyprus problem in a manner that will yield results”. This theoretically placed Boutros-Ghali in a pivotal position in peacemaking efforts. His “Set of Ideas” detailed a series of confidence-building measures between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots with a view to pushing the parties towards a solution to this long-standing problem. Yet in implying the full support of the members of the Security Council, both collectively and individually, the secretary-general was mediating on false premises, for this support was not genuine. Moreover, Boutros-Ghali arguably succumbed to the impatience of the international community in openly criticising the Turkish Cypriots’ negotiating stance. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, this may not have been constructive for the office’s traditionally impartial basis of legitimacy, either in this case or in general.

 

Boutros-Ghali’s tenure as secretary-general saw his office plunged into controversy through the collision of various forces: an unstable international political environment that thrust the United Nations into largely uncharted territory; a shifting international power balance; and the activist—some might say confrontational—character of Boutros-Ghali himself. Historical tumult and personality clashes forced the office into difficult, sometimes untenable, situations.

The Quiet Healer

If Boutros-Ghali became entangled in post–Cold War international complexities, Kofi Annan’s tenure has been characterised by quietly assertive mediation amid similar pressures. He was appointed, in part, as a healer and a quiet insider after the turbulence of Boutros-Ghali’s tenure. However, Annan has been progressive and tactfully insistent. He has carefully castigated the United Nations and the world’s major powers for ignoring particular crises and areas. He has challenged the idea that sovereignty and borders are inviolable, arguing for a norm of humanitarian intervention that has fuelled a necessary and overdue debate. Indeed, he has truly confronted the evolving nature of sovereignty, especially when balanced against human rights. Although Annan has not sought controversy, he has not been afraid to raise issues at the heart of the United Nations’ mission, however uncomfortable these may be. He presided over the publication of frank and self-critical reports on the United Nations’ involvement in Rwanda and on the tragedy of Srebrenica, in a sense purging painful experiences.

 

Much of Annan’s work has consisted in mediating between the United States and the rest of the UN membership. He has sought to keep the United States engaged while maintaining his and the organisation’s independence, balancing hegemony and the universal aspirations of the United Nations. On some occasions this has meant taking positions at odds with the United States. He has expressed concern about the suffering of the Iraqi population under UN sanctions and called for a system that would inflict less “collateral damage”. He has also argued that the United Nations should control the oil-for-food revenue and not the United States. This is sensitive territory. Again, he has given public support to Israel in its battle to gain a full place in the United Nations—possibly marking a turning point in the relationship between the world body and the Jewish state—and has been frank and direct with African leaders about their own responsibility for their countries’ development.

 

Yet Annan’s avoidance of controversy has led some to argue that he has been too passive and is a fence-sitter. For example, it was hard to tell if he supported or opposed NATO’s military actions against Serbia over the Kosovo crisis. Annan generally favours humanitarian intervention in dire circumstances, and he effectively endorsed the NATO air strikes. At the same time, however, he implicitly reprimanded NATO for having acted without Security Council authorisation.

 

As regards Africa, Annan has been accused of doing too little for his continent and even of pursuing the agenda of the industrialised West. This is quite false. In fact, Annan has promoted the concept of a “Global New Deal”, backed by the significant resources that the United Nations puts into African peace and development, to remedy the imbalances between rich and poor countries. Yet the criticisms that Annan does not do enough for Africa—or indeed that he is a “puppet” of the West—must be seen in a deeper context. The man is an intelligent, charismatic, creative secretary-general who has won respect within and outside the United Nations, but legal and political structures beyond his control impose formidable constraints upon his effectiveness. He has been at the vanguard of progressive ideas relating to good governance, human rights, development and international peace and security. But this is often contingent upon the congruence of wider forces that he can then channel and give a platform to.

 

The fundamental issue has long been whether the secretaryship-general is more an adjunct of the intergovernmental system or part of a wider process of global governance that transcends state structures. The secretary-general’s immediate environment is that of an intergovernmental—and some might say inherently conservative—organisation. But the office has also been at the forefront of UN activities in the domestic context and in promoting concern for the wider security agenda. Indeed, issues formerly considered to fall within the domestic jurisdiction of states, such as democratisation and the promotion of human rights, are undoubtedly being internationalised, and the secretary-general’s office has contributed to this development. In a sense, the secretary-general has pushed the Security Council to commit itself to areas of activity which otherwise may not have been considered as being within its collective remit, or would have been outside the narrow interests of the individual member states.

 

Given the constraints within which the secretary-general’s office operates—most obviously that it depends upon an intergovernmental system for mandates and support—there are limits to what it can do directly. Thus, Boutros-Ghali’s “innovative” post–Cold War activities occurred at a pace set by the Security Council, and he eventually ran aground. Yet in agenda setting, proposing institutional developments and taking proactive steps—such as preliminary measures for good offices—the secretary-general has been at the forefront of a movement better to equip the United Nations for the peace and security issues with which it is increasingly confronted.

 

However, tensions still exist. The secretary-general is wedded to the structures of the United Nations, and the intergovernmental doctrine and bureaucratic inertia of the UN system have resulted in severe shortcomings. Of course, the secretary-general has been able to achieve some independence of the Security Council and perhaps his office has developed beyond the traditional model of the international civil service. The office is less constrained by the “international/domestic” dichotomy, and does not merely respond to issues. Indeed, it is displaying clear proactive tendencies, taking the initiative and influencing the agenda where possible. Yet, as R. S. Jordan observed, “the international civil service, caught between ‘global’ responsibilities and national constraints…can only muddle along, performing in an imperfect way according to admittedly imperfect criteria of accomplishment.”¹⁵ The secretary-general is still trapped within this paradox. However we evaluate the personal approaches of Boutros Boutros-Ghali or Kofi Annan, the turbulent environment provides the background essential to understanding the secretary-general’s opportunities and constraints.

Endnotes

1. Egon F. Ranshofen-Wertheimer, The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1945).

 

2. Georges Langrod, The International Civil Service: Its Origins, Its Nature, Its Evolution (New York: Oceana Publications Inc., 1963), p. 24.

 

3. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “Global Leadership after the Cold War”, Foreign Affairs 75, no. 2 (1996).

 

4. Jesse Helms, “Saving the UN”, Foreign Affairs 75, no. 5 (1996).

 

5. See Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished: A U.S.–U.N. Saga (London: I. B. Tauris; New York: Random House, 1999).

 

6. Langrod, The International Civil Service, p. 202.

 

7. Dag Hammarskjöld, “The International Civil Servant in Law and in Fact”, in The Servant of Peace: A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, ed. W. Foote (London: Bodley Head, 1962), p. 335.

 

8. Hammarskjöld’s statement on his reappointment, General Assembly, 26 September 1957, cited in Foote, Servant of Peace, p. 150.

 

9. Robert S. Jordan, “Prologue: The Legacy Which Dag Hammarskjöld Inherited and His Imprint on It”, in Dag Hammarskjöld Revisited, ed. Robert S. Jordan (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), p. 8.

10. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Cyril Foster Lecture, Oxford University, 15 January 1996.

11. UN Press Release SG/SM/6053, 16 September 1996.

12. New York Times, 29 December 1994.

13. Letter from the secretary-general to the president of the Security Council, S/1996/36, 17 January 1996.

14. Letter to the author, 12 August 1995.

15. Robert S. Jordan, “Truly International Bureaucracies: Real or Imagined?”, in Politics in the United Nations System, ed. Lawrence S. Finkelstein (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988), p. 441.