ABSTRACT: Article 7 of the United Nations Charter establishes the Secretariat as one of the principal organs of the organization. Over time, the Secretariat has emerged as one of the most dynamic organs within the UN system, largely due to the progressive expansion of its operational mandate. While this broadening of responsibilities has often been welcomed by member states, it has also, in certain instances, generated concerns. The scope of these functions has expanded to such an extent that it now frequently impacts the internal cultural, economic, and political systems of states. Contemporary analysis of state practice reveals that a significant portion of the international community insists on preserving its unique cultural and social characteristics. Indeed, in the context of a renewed emphasis on national cultural and political identities, the UN Secretary-General is obligated to act in concert with the will and practice of member states, diligently maintaining political, economic, and cultural equilibrium. The Secretary-General must serve as an effective instrument for the revival of the principle enshrined in Article 2(7) of the UN Charter: a principle essential for the survival of all diverse orientations. Consequently, a comprehensive examination and analysis of the evolution of the UN Secretary-General’s activities, which can be understood as an adaptation to the challenges facing the global community in the third millennium, is of paramount importance.
SUMMARY: 1. Introduction – 2. The Expanding Role of the UN Secretary-General: A Necessity for Addressing Global Challenges in the 21st Century – 3. Structural Development of Sub-Organizations under the Secretary-General – 4. Development of the Substantive Competence of the UN Secretary-General – 5. Challenges to the Expansion of the Secretary-General’s Role in Confrontation with the International Sovereignty-Based System – 6. Support for the Expansion of the UN Secretary-General’s Duties by International Doctrine and Practice – 7. The Necessity for the UN Secretary-General to Consider National Sensitivities in the Expansion of the Institution’s Duties – 8. Conclusion.
1. Introduction
Article 7 of the United Nations Charter designates the “Secretariat,” headed by the “Secretary-General,” as one of the principal organs of the United Nations. According to the Preparatory Commission for the Charter in 1945, the Secretary-General, as the chief administrative officer, or even the “chief of staff,” of the United Nations Secretariat, serves as the permanent representative of the United Nations as a whole more than any other individual. From a global perspective, this official is tasked with pursuing and facilitating the implementation of the principles and objectives outlined in the Charter, which the United Nations is mandated to execute.
Trygve Lie, the first occupant of the Secretary-General post, famously stated that the position of Secretary-General is “the most impossible job in the world.” Subsequent Secretary-Generals who succeeded him have similarly emphasized this point (Gordenker, Leon & Rivlin Benjamin, 1993: 3-21). Nevertheless, the profound impact of this office is undeniable. Some scholars have referred to this position as “the sixteenth seat” on the Security Council, emphasizing that the stance of this international official can significantly influence the course of international affairs (Gordenker & Leon, 2013: 2). At the same time, a critical issue currently impacting the Secretary-General’s sphere of operation is the moral legitimacy of this international official’s actions, which could significantly affect the future influence of this body.
Structurally, beyond the Secretary-General and their deputies and assistant secretaries, the Secretariat comprises a body of international civil servants who perform diverse duties across various locations worldwide, carrying out the multifaceted work of the United Nations and its related entities. By 2012, the Secretariat consisted of “forty-four thousand staff members” globally (Chesterman, in: Simma & others, 1994: Article 97).
The Secretary-General’s position is akin to that of a head of state. According to Article 97 of the Charter, the Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The permanent members of the Security Council possess veto power in the selection of the Secretary-General. If a candidate is not trusted or does not secure the confidence of the permanent powers, their selection will be vetoed. This situation notably occurred during the second term selection of Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1996, when the United States, dissatisfied with his independent involvement in Middle Eastern affairs, vetoed his independent candidacy.
Following decolonization and the expansion of Third World membership in the United Nations during the 1950s and 1960s, new issues and demands emerged from these states. This led to an increase in the sub-divisions within the Secretariat and the emergence of new responsibilities for the Secretary-General. Concurrently, successive Secretaries-General of the United Nations Secretariat adopted policies and measures to address these developments, shaped by the prevailing circumstances of their respective tenures. It is noteworthy that human rights responsibilities for the Secretary-General are not explicitly stipulated in the Charter. The assumption of such a role has varied, influenced by the personal and managerial characteristics of individual Secretaries-General and consistent with the principle of implied powers.
In this context, a crucial question arose: how can the UN Secretary-General intervene in sensitive matters where international consensus is lacking? Fundamentally, the primary concern was among states apprehensive about preserving their sovereign principles. This apprehension was particularly acute given that Article 2(7) of the UN Charter explicitly prohibits the organization from intervening in matters falling within the “exclusive jurisdiction of states.” Today, nearly seven decades after its adoption, the concerns of some states remain pertinent (Kolb Robert, 2006: 597). More precisely, although some international legal scholars in the 1940s argued that an issue affecting the interests of more than one state could no longer be considered purely domestic, recent developments in the international community necessitate a different perspective. However, emphasizing globalization and mandating the intervention of the UN and its Secretary-General in all internal dimensions of states cannot be considered a comprehensive solution to this issue. A realistic assessment of the international community suggests that such a view is overly simplistic. The complexities of cultural diversity and the increasing desire of states to preserve their cultural and even historical identities, and consequently their reliance on matters fundamentally inherent to their culture, are not diminished by the rhetoric of “globalization.”
An examination of state practice and the realities of regulating legal relations between states continues to underscore that, from the perspective of international law, the crucial point is that in all these instances, the state still “can” act in its preferred manner, and it is not unlikely that the majority of their constituent members would also support this freedom. The description of this choice from the perspective of international law is clear: the freedom of states to regulate their internal affairs or the inability of international law and international institutions to intervene in matters essentially considered domestic affairs of a state. It is within such an environment that the expanding role of the UN Secretary-General can generate its unique legal, political, and even cultural challenges. A point that particularly fuels this discussion is the role that the Secretary-General’s specific perspective on religious and cultural issues can play in resolving international matters. A historical example substantiating the above claim is pertinent: in the first two decades of the UN’s establishment, the influence of religious ethics was highly noticeable in the conduct of two prominent UN Secretaries-General, U Thant and Dag Hammarskjöld, and this significantly contributed to the acceptance of their performance. However, this ethical approach among UN Secretaries-General gradually lost its theoretical prominence, resulting in a somewhat diminished moral influence of the Secretary-General in international decision-making—a reality that is difficult to deny.
From the 1960s onward, particularly during the tenures of Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan, and at the request of newly independent member states, discussions surrounding economic, social, and cultural development, refugee crises, industrial development, environmental degradation, international human rights protection, social development, and poverty eradication led to the establishment of new bodies within the United Nations framework. This included the creation of entities such as UNCTAD, UNHCR, UNDP, UNEP, OHCHR, and the Human Rights Council, among others.
In this paper, within two main sections, the evolving activities of the UN Secretary-General—which can be seen as an engagement with the challenges of the global community in the third millennium—will be examined alongside their associated legal challenges.
2. The Expanding Role of the UN Secretary-General: A Necessity for Addressing Global Challenges in the 21st Century
The Secretary-General symbolizes the United Nations as a quasi-global government and serves as the spokesperson for the interests of the world’s peoples. The Charter broadly describes the Secretary-General as the chief administrative officer of this universal organization, tasked with acting within its capacities and fulfilling other duties assigned by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and other UN organs. Furthermore, the Charter empowers the Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which, in their opinion, may threaten international peace and security. While the Secretary-General will fail if they do not carefully consider the concerns of member states, they must also uphold the values and moral authority of the United Nations. Their words and actions must consistently serve peace, even when this entails risk or challenging member states.
Throughout any given day, the Secretary-General faces numerous professional demands, including attending meetings of UN bodies, consulting with world leaders, government officials, and other individuals, and undertaking planned travels across the globe. These activities keep the Secretary-General connected to the people of UN member states and informed about the wide array of international concerns on the organization’s agenda.
Moreover, the Secretary-General chairs the Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), which twice a year convenes the executive heads of all UN programs, funds, and specialized agencies to address a broad spectrum of managerial and substantive issues confronting the UN system (Kolb Robert, 2006: 597).
One of the most vital roles performed by the Secretary-General is to undertake public or private actions, utilizing good offices and relying on independence, impartiality, and integrity, to prevent international disputes that have arisen or are escalating (Kolb Robert, 2006: 597). In this regard, Ban Ki-moon stated in his swearing-in ceremony at the General Assembly on December 14, 2006:
“By strengthening the three pillars of the United Nations – security, development, and human rights – we can build a more prosperous, peaceful, and just world for future generations. As we pursue our collective efforts to achieve these goals, my first priority will be to restore trust.”
Emphasizing this vision, the UN Secretary-General has strived to play a positive role in addressing the challenges of the global community by implementing structural and substantive reforms. In the following two sections, we will sequentially address these reforms in their structural and substantive dimensions.
3. Structural Development of Sub-Organizations under the Secretary-General
The management of the Secretariat’s sub-entities in a “cabinet” style was an initiative of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, implemented in September 1997 (Volger, 2010: 631). Furthermore, the “Senior Management Group” is a high-level body that brings together leaders of various UN offices, programs, funds, and departments under the chairmanship of the Secretary-General. It includes the following officials:
The Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General, Chef de Cabinet, Special Adviser on Africa, High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Support, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Executive Director of the World Food Programme; Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security, Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Myanmar, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund; United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Under-Secretary-General for Management, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi, Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services (Volger, 2010: 631-635).
By adopting such measures and structural development during Kofi Annan’s tenure, the Secretary-General, through the extensive and elaborate Secretariat and its sub-entities, strives to fulfill the duties outlined in the Charter and to comply with the recommendations of superior organs. This aims to meet the expectations of 193 UN member states and the diverse nations of the world, although some shortcomings and deficiencies are not unexpected in such a vast undertaking. Nevertheless, what is observable in this complex structure is the Secretary-General’s engagement in areas that, until recently, were considered exclusive competencies of states, and any international intervention in them was rejected by member states. Examples of such matters will be addressed in the next section.
4. Development of the Substantive Competence of the UN Secretary-General
Although each of the former Secretaries-General of the United Nations Secretariat has, to varying degrees, and depending on the prevailing circumstances and personal inclinations, paid particular attention to one or more international issues, for instance, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon showed a special interest in human rights issues. However, as Mr. Ramkaran, former High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted in one of his writings, there is still no clear and coherent overall strategy or policy evident in their actions aimed at achieving “…the promotion of a global culture of human rights, the creation of a preventive strategy addressing new risks and threats such as climate change, effective support for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in fulfilling their duties, effective support for the Responsibility to Protect, especially at the domestic level of countries, and finally, effective support for the International Criminal Court and some other issues.”
For example, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared his priority to bring world leaders together to address new global challenges such as climate change, economic crises, and issues related to food, energy, and water. This Secretary-General’s will was to simultaneously be the voice of the poorest and most vulnerable and to strengthen the United Nations. He writes about himself:
“I grew up during wartime and witnessed how my country rose and rebuilt itself with the help of the United Nations. This story played a decisive role in my desire to pursue public service. As Secretary-General of the United Nations, I am determined to see the organization achieve tangible and significant results in advancing peace, development, and human rights.”
His main activities were as follows:
- Promoting Sustainable Development: One of the Secretary-General’s biggest initiatives was organizing the 2007 Summit on Climate Change, which followed extensive diplomatic efforts to make this issue a global priority. Numerous initiatives have been undertaken in this regard to combat poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals globally. In line with these efforts, governments have pledged $60 billion to achieve these goals in Africa and to assist the strategy for women’s and children’s health. In 2008, amidst the severe crises of food, economy, and energy scarcity, the UN Secretary-General succeeded in persuading the G20 to approve a trillion-dollar financial aid program for developing countries.
- Aiding Women’s Independence: The Secretary-General has successfully established “UN Women,” creating the largest entity to coordinate the activities of the UN system in this field. In line with the Secretary-General’s efforts to promote women’s rights and gender equality, numerous campaigns have been launched, including “UNiTE to End Violence against Women,” the “Stop Rape Now” initiative, which is a UN campaign against sexual violence in wartime, the creation of a network of influential individuals, and the implementation of a new post titled Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Administratively, the Secretary-General has also increased the number of high-ranking female staff by forty percent.
- Assisting Countries in Crisis or Instability: The UN Secretary-General has strived to strengthen UN peace efforts by creating a comprehensive strategic system for peacebuilding in the aftermath of social crises. A support group for mediation and good offices has been established by the Secretary-General with the aim of preventing, managing, and resolving internal and international tensions. Special attention has been given by the Secretary-General to the responsibility of individuals and states in human rights violations. Numerous examples, such as investigations in Gaza, Guinea, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and judicial actions concerning Lebanon and Cambodia, are instances of this attention. The Secretary-General has also endeavored to draw the international community’s attention to major humanitarian crises such as Myanmar (2008) and Haiti (2010). In this context, the UN Secretary-General has been active in relation to the democratic transition of power in North Africa and the Middle East, in what has been termed the “Arab Spring.”
- Renewed Attention to Disarmament and Non-Proliferation: The UN Secretary-General has sought to place the issue of disarmament back on the global agenda. To this end, a five-point plan for breaking the stalemate in the Conference on Disarmament has been implemented by the Secretary-General. In this context, following the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, special attention has been given to the issue of nuclear safety and security in the Secretary-General’s programs. But has the UN Secretary-General’s involvement in all these issues been legally legitimate? An examination of some challenging topics, such as human rights and cultural issues, reveals that although international consensus in these areas has been very strong, political-legal challenges and criticisms have also been raised. In the following, the challenges of this “unbridled expansion” in dealing with the international sovereignty-based system will be discussed.
5. Challenges to the Expansion of the Secretary-General’s Role in Confrontation with the International Sovereignty-Based System
Just as domestic law provides a free space for every individual, international law also entitles every state to consider a domain as its sphere of freedom of action; a space in which it is the sole sovereign over its actions (Bowett, D.W., 1982: 24-25) and no one can interfere. This scope is known in international legal terminology as the “domestic jurisdiction” of states.
Historically, the concept of “domestic jurisdiction of states” first appeared in the official literature of international law in Article 15, paragraph 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. After the League of Nations ceased to exist, the same content, with minor modifications, was included in Article 2, paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter. Since then, the implementation of these articles has consistently been one of the contentious issues in international law. Generally, regarding the origin of the concept of “domestic jurisdiction,” the practice of states in international law attracts the attention of international law scholars more than purely theoretical perspectives. In this regard, there is little dispute that prior to the First World War, the principle was the absolute competence of states, and the international legal order was secondary and exceptional. It has been argued that, theoretically, it has always been international law that has had the general competence to distribute powers between domestic law and international law. This characteristic is a feature related to the raison d’être of international law, and without it, speaking of international law is merely idle talk. With this argument, speaking of the domestic jurisdiction of states gains meaning and concept for protection against unlawful encroachment by international bodies. More accurately, the fundamental rule is that international law can theoretically manage all legal spheres on its own, and therefore, the concept of domestic jurisdiction is an exception to protect the state against this potential capability. Therefore, it is international law, by virtue of its general nature, that grants states domestic jurisdiction, and the reverse is by no means correct. This view has been repeatedly emphasized by international courts, for example, in the following paragraph from the Permanent Court of International Justice’s advisory opinion in the “Nationality Decrees Issued in Tunis and Morocco” case:
“Article 15 [of the Covenant of the League of Nations]… establishes the fundamental principle that any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, which is not submitted to arbitration under Article 13, shall be brought before the Council… Because of this general competence of the League of Nations, the Covenant of the League of Nations contains an express reservation in favor of the independence of states: this is paragraph 8 of Article 15 of the Covenant… But it must not be forgotten that the provisions of paragraph 8, according to which the Council, in each case, will confine itself to considering the exclusive competence of one of the parties to the dispute under international law, imply an exception to the principles stated in the preceding paragraphs and cannot therefore be interpreted expansively.”
Therefore, based on this argument, the legitimacy of any international body requires an arrangement that has been previously established by the organs of the international community, and deviating from this arrangement and its unbridled expansion would, in a sense, deny international legitimacy. Can such a view be used to combat the idea of expanding the powers of the UN Secretary-General and, in the name of defending the national sovereignty of member states, reject his intervention in areas such as development and human rights? The truth is that, while international law doctrine in recent years has moved towards justifying the expansion of the UN Secretary-General’s activities, caution must be exercised in defining the boundaries of this expansion, given certain legal-identity concerns.
6. Support for the Expansion of the UN Secretary-General’s Duties by International Doctrine and Practice
If we consider the debate over the expansion of the UN Secretary-General’s competencies within the framework of classic theories of international organization competence, there will be significant reasons to accept its legitimacy. The truth is that two theories have been put forward regarding the competencies of international organizations and their organs: the theory of expressed powers and the theory of implied powers (Mousazadeh, 2010: 37).
According to the first theory, expressed powers, international organizations are competent only within the scope of powers and duties explicitly granted to them by the founding states and have no authority beyond that. In this view, to discover the competence of an organization and its organs, including the duties of the Secretary-General, one must interpret the literal text of the statutes, and the founding states must also act only through the statutes and their articles. However, this strict interpretation has largely lost its credibility in the face of proponents of the “implied powers” theory, and international judicial practice has explicitly leaned towards accepting the theory that “the competencies and powers of international organizations are not limited to those listed in their statutes or other regulations, and organizations have competence and authority to the extent necessary and essential to carry out their functions and objectives, even if it goes beyond the explicit provisions of the statute” (Zamani, 2014: 99). It seems that this view has gained the upper hand in international legal doctrine. The International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion in 1949 regarding reparations for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations, also endorsed this view and emphasized that, according to international law, the United Nations possesses the necessary powers to achieve its objectives, even if such powers are not explicitly provided for in the Charter.
In fact, it is accepted by many international jurists that when interpreting and implementing international rules, political and social developments should be considered, and a kind of inherent dynamism should be taken into account in the application of international rules (Shaygan, 2001: 14). In reality, it is a accepted fact that every social phenomenon is a variable phenomenon, and any interpretation regarding its nature must consider its subsequent changes, and the interpreter should not merely confine himself to a closed text (Djeffal, Christian, 2016: 22). In this situation, the organization can effectively carry out its duties at the international level; otherwise, the international organization will fall victim to limitations arising from artificial phrasing. Regarding the competencies of the Secretary-General, it should also be borne in mind that the specialized missions of the organization for the promotion of human rights and development, which are explicitly mentioned in the UN Charter, have been evaluated as a means for the Secretary-General to enter this field, as it has been said that “the competence of an international organization can be determined within the framework of its specialized missions (political, cultural, health, etc.)” (Mousazadeh, 2010: 39).
At the same time, international practice has, in numerous instances, welcomed the Secretary-General’s performance in various dimensions, from the field of human rights to international peace and security. For example, in the field of human rights activities, according to a General Assembly resolution (General Assembly Resolution 48/241), the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, has primary responsibility for United Nations activities in the field of human rights and must perform his duties impartially, objectively, non-selectively, and effectively (Golshan Pajouh, 2008: 49). The High Commissioner for Human Rights remains accountable to the Secretary-General and is responsible for all activities of the office, its administration, and the performance of specific duties assigned according to the resolution establishing this position in 1993 and subsequent resolutions of policymaking bodies in the field of human rights. He also advises the Secretary-General on human rights matters and provides legal and executive support for the activities of human rights bodies. In another example, the United Nations General Assembly, in Resolution 49/184 of December 1994, declared January 1, 1995, to December 31, 2004, as the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education. In this resolution, the General Assembly welcomed the related plan of action presented by the Secretary-General and requested the High Commissioner for Human Rights to cooperate in its implementation. In women’s affairs, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously voted in 2010 to establish a new entity to accelerate gender equality and women’s empowerment. According to this resolution, four previous United Nations entities in the field of gender equality were merged and will operate under the name “UN Women,” headed by one of the Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations.
An examination of these and similar examples demonstrates that the overall structure of the international community aligns with the prevailing interpretation regarding the expansion of the Secretary-General’s activities. However, it is crucial to note that this expansion of duties cannot achieve its expected outcome without addressing certain national sensitivities.
7. The Necessity for the UN Secretary-General to Consider National Sensitivities in the Expansion of the Institution’s Duties
It is a fact that in our time, interdependence has become one of the necessities of the international community. Traditionally, international law was built upon the principle of territoriality. Every state possesses exclusive jurisdiction over what transpires within its territorial domain. In the past, adhering to this simple principle could easily lead to a state’s satisfaction regarding other states. Today, the proliferation of cross-border phenomena has considerably complicated international law. While history attests that up until a century ago, states were practically unable to consistently harm their neighbors, today, this ability is characteristic of all states, big and small. All activities of an industrialized society today can more or less affect the water and soil of neighboring states beyond their borders. More interestingly, as Manfred Lachs pointed out, we have all become neighbors today, and consequently, we are all interdependent. In a world where oil fields extend from the coast of France to the southernmost points of Latin America, or a volcano on the distant island of Iceland affects all of Europe, we cannot deny being neighbors. Naturally, in such a society, transcending the traditional boundaries of exclusive jurisdiction and rejecting unilateral international actions should be adopted as a comprehensive approach by the majority of states. However, this is one side of the coin:
“Legal absolutism” and the use of the Secretary-General’s instrument to impose what is called “international humanitarian law” will ultimately lead to the failure of the plan to expand the UN Secretary-General’s duties. While many Western legal scholars speak of the undeniable relationship between legal rules, there are relativist legal scholars who tend to believe that their ethno-cultural characteristics should exempt them from certain human legal rules.
This very issue can demonstrate the importance of the role of sovereign states.
One of the most fundamental principles of general international law is its universal character, meaning that regardless of religious, cultural, or historical traditions, the rules of international law are binding on all states. However, the universality of international law in the real world has faced many practical and theoretical challenges; these confrontations take on a different color and character in the realm of what is today called “human rights”: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which holds great legal and moral value for proponents of universal human rights, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at a time when most of today’s developing states did not enjoy the blessing of independence, and many of them were considered colonies of Western states and therefore had no role in this historic decision. For example, of the fifty African states that today constitute about one-third of the UN members, only four states, enjoying full independence, were present at the historic session of the adoption of this Declaration. Some experts note in this regard that if more African states had been present at the UN General Assembly that day, their presence would have severely influenced the draft of that Declaration. Therefore, some have rightly stated that due to the absence of many states in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is difficult to consider this Declaration truly “universal” in the true sense of the word.
To resolve this conflict, a group of authors in doctrine has created a concept called “moderate cultural relativism,” which, while accepting diversity in human legal rules, does not forget its main goal, which is to protect a series of truly “universal” rights.
The approach of moderate cultural relativism attempts to strike a balance between two schools of thought. These two schools are narrow cultural relativism and pure universalism.
While the first school of thought believes that human rights in each culture should be considered as a specific set, the second group maintains that human rights should be considered as globally applicable to everyone. However, the application of the moderate cultural relativism theory itself creates problems because most thinkers, in adopting this approach, tend to initially search for rights that they believe are universal and applicable to all. Yet, this search almost traditionally begins with Western standards of human rights, and if other cultures are examined, it is solely for the purpose of confirming or rejecting the universality of these standards, rather than aiming to create a kind of equality between these cultures. This issue is, at the same time, of great importance because it is closely linked to the legitimacy of international law: for international law to maintain its legitimacy, efforts to define universal human rights should not be influenced by the dominance of Western values. From a practical standpoint, this issue is also significant: undoubtedly, human rights that disregard cultures may very well fail in practice. Many Arab or Muslim legal scholars, considering the realities of their own societies, strongly emphasize this latter point. In a world where religion is still one of the main pillars of many societies, even Western societies, the Secretary-General cannot pursue his actions without religious considerations.
In this regard, if the human rights activities of the Secretary-General are based on a series of “dogmatic” Western understandings, it is likely that they will not achieve the desired outcome due to the opposition of Islamic states. For example, when a significant part of the international community still views the “right to homosexuality” with denial, how can the role of the Secretary-General in attempting to promote this—which is considered an abhorrent act by the vast majority of the Islamic world—be explained? And, of course, this is not limited to challenging human rights issues. Issues of maintaining international peace and security should be considered another example in this area. Emphasizing the interests of one party without considering the interests of the other may pave the way for the failure of an idealistic and justice-seeking plan. Was the failure of Dag Hammarskjöld’s plan in Congo not due to a lack of attention to the balance of power in the political world of that day? Unfortunately, in today’s world, such approaches are not uncommon. For example, when the UN Secretary-General, on June 6, 2016, was forced to backtrack under pressure from some powerful states in the international community and remove Saudi Arabia from the list of violators of children’s rights during armed conflicts, an extremely political and unethical image of the Secretary-General’s unbalanced performance was displayed in public forums, which could severely affect the Secretary-General’s political and moral credibility for influencing both domestic and international arenas in the future. These very considerations have opened the door for serious discussion about the process of electing the new UN Secretary-General. The fundamental question is whether the complete dominance of the five permanent members of the Security Council cannot itself become a crisis for the future role of the Secretary-General? Should not other states and even non-governmental organizations play a role in the selection of the new UN Secretary-General? In this regard, legal scholars such as Simon Chesterman, Professor of International Law at the National University of Singapore, explicitly speak of the necessity of reducing the exclusive role of the five permanent members of the Security Council in the nomination and election process of the UN Secretary-General.
8. Conclusion
Before starting the discussion in the introduction, we stated that the job of the Secretary-General is one of the most impossible missions in the world, and now in the conclusion, we must emphasize this fact once again. A person who must maintain all political, economic, and cultural balances in their performance will inevitably not be able to please everyone, and this dissatisfaction will be considered equivalent to declaring the failure of their primary mission. However, such an interpretation of this mission would be overly strict. The UN Secretary-General, like any other organ of this organization, is obligated to strive, as the spokesperson for this international body, to fulfill the primary duties of this institution, namely preventing the devastating scourge of war and improving the living conditions of the world’s people. In this endeavor, they are inevitably compelled to transcend initial boundaries and expand their duties. As we saw, the interpretation of the UN organs and member states has not opposed this expansion of authority and has moved towards giving it legal legitimacy.
As mentioned, there are two interpretations regarding the competence of the organs of an international organization in classical literature: express competence and implied competence. International legal doctrine has gravitated towards implied competence since the second half of the last century, and judicial practice has also confirmed this approach in its advisory opinion on the reparations for injuries suffered by UN personnel.
However, the truth is that this progression is not the whole story: in a century that many interpret as the century of returning to specific national and cultural characteristics, the evolving role of the Secretary-General must consider the subtleties of these characteristics. Cultural relativism and the effort towards a pluralistic world will not only contribute to the success of the great mission of this global organization’s Secretary-General, but can also serve as a model for increasing tolerance and hope for peace in a better tomorrow. In contrast, the Secretary-General’s emphasis on some contentious aspects of human rights, such as homosexuality or insult to religious sanctities, can lead to the failure of the idealistic plans of this global organization. It is hoped that, on the eve of the eighth decade of this international organization’s birth, this truth can guide the success of the “difficult” mission of the world’s top diplomat.
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