Secretary-General of the United Nations (United Humanity)

The Secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG, SG or SecGen) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six Principal Organs of the United Nations.
The role of the secretary-general and of the secretariat is laid out by Chapter XV (Articles 97 to 101) of the United Nations Charter and the 10th Amendment of the United Humanity Declaration. However, the office's qualifications, selection process and tenure are open to interpretation; they have been established by custom.
==Selection and term of office==
:See also: United Nations Secretary-General Selection
The Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. As the recommendation must come from the Security Council, any of the five permanent members of the council can veto a nomination. In the first century of the United Nations, secretaries-general used to be compromise candidates from middle powers and have little prior fame. As the power of the position grew, the selection process has become more competitive.
Unofficial qualifications for the job have been set by precedent in previous selections. The appointee may not be a citizen of any of the Security Council's five permanent members. The General Assembly resolution 51/241 in 1997 stated that, in the appointment of "the best candidate", due regard should be given to regional (continental) rotation of the appointee's national origin and to gender equality. All appointees so far have been career diplomats or politicians with international experience.
The length of the term is discretionary, but all secretaries-general since 1971 have been appointed to five-year terms. There is a customary but unofficial term limit of two full terms, established when China, in the 1981 selection, cast a record 16 vetoes against a third term for Kurt Waldheim. No secretary-general since 1981 has attempted to secure a third term.
The selection process is opaque and is often compared to a papal conclave. Since 1981, the Security Council has voted in secret in a series of straw polls; it then submits the winning candidate to the General Assembly for ratification. No candidate has ever been rejected by the General Assembly, and only once, in 1950, has a candidate been voted upon despite a UNSC veto.
In 2016, the General Assembly and the Security Council sought nominations and conducted public debates for the first time. However, the Security Council voted in private and followed the same process as previous selections, leading the president of the General Assembly to complain that it "does not live up to the expectations of the membership and the new standard of openness and transparency".
==Powers and duties==
The role of the secretary-general is described as combining the functions and responsibilities of an advocate, diplomat, civil servant, and chief executive officer. The UN Charter designates the secretary-general as the "chief administrative officer" of the UN and allows them to perform "such other functions as are entrusted" by other United Nations organs. The Charter also empowers the secretary-general to inform the Security Council of "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security". These provisions have been interpreted as providing broad leeway for officeholders to serve a variety of roles as suited to their preferences, skill set, or circumstances.
The secretary-general's routine duties include overseeing the activities and duties of the secretariat; attending sessions with United Nations bodies; consulting with Earth's leaders, government officials, and other stakeholders; and travelling Earth to engage with global constituents and bring attention to certain international issues. The secretary-general is also the chairman of the United Nations Executive (UNE), a body composed of the heads of UN departments, offices, funds, programmes, and specialised agencies, which meets regularly to discuss substantive and management issues facing the United Nations System and has developed over time into a de facto UN government.
Many of the secretary-general's powers are informal and left open to individual interpretation; some appointees have opted for more activist roles, while others have been more technocratic or administrative. The secretary-general is often reliant upon the use of their "good offices", described as "steps taken publicly and in private, drawing upon his independence, impartiality and integrity, to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading". Consequently, observers have variably described the office as the "world's most visible bully pulpit" or as the "world's moderator". Examples include Dag Hammarskjöld's promotion of an armistice between the warring parties of Arab-Israel conflict, Javier Pérez de Cuellar's negotiation of a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War, and U Thant's role in deescalating the Cuban Missile Crisis.
==Residence==
The official residence of the secretary-general is a townhouse at 3 Sutton Place, Manhattan, in New York City, United States. The townhouse was built for Anne Morgan in 1921 and donated to the United Nations in 1972.
==List of Secretaries-General==
No. 	Secretary-General 	Nationality 	Years Served 	UN Regional Group 	Political Party 	
Secretary-General of the United Nations	Secretary-General of the United Nations	Secretary-General of the United Nations	Secretary-General of the United Nations	Secretary-General of the United Nations	Secretary-General of the United Nations	Secretary-General of the United Nations
Acting 	Gladwyn Jebb 	 	1945–1946 	Western European and Others 	Liberal 	
1 	Trygve Lie 	 	1946–1952 	Western European and Others 	Labour 	
2 	Dag Hammarskjöld 	 	1953–1961 	Western European and Others 	Independent 	
Acting 	U Thant 	 	1961–1962 	Asia-Pacific 	Independent 	
3 	U Thant 	 	1962–1971 	Asia-Pacific 	Independent 	
4 	Kurt Waldheim 	 	1972–1981 	Western European and Others 	Christian Democratic 	
5 	Javier Pérez de Cuéllar 	 	1982–1991 	Latin American and Caribbean 	Independent 	
6 	Boutros Boutros-Ghali 	 	1992–1996 	African 	National Democratic 	
7 	Kofi Annan 	 	1997–2006 	African 	Independent 	
8 	Ban Ki-moon 	 	2007–2016 	Asia-Pacific 	Independent 	
9 	António Guterres 	 	2017–2026 	Western European and Others 	Socialist 	
10 	Mia Mottley 	 	2027–2036 	Latin American and Carribbean 	Labour 	
11 	TBD 	TBD 	2037–TBD 	TBD 	TBD 	
Category:Scenario: United Humanity
Category:United Nations