P65∼88
P5∼20
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope
Rope”: An Analytic Approach to the SecretaryGeneralship
Jeong-Tae Kim∗
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of the UN SecretaryGeneralship, and develop a theoretical tool through which to enhance the understanding of how the Secretary-Generalship is actualized within a specific context. Based on
the belief that the understanding of the Secretary-General is conducive to furthering
knowledge of the United Nations, firstly it considers the nature of the SecretaryGeneralship: changing and conflicting. Second, it then turns to the formation of the
Legal-Sphere of the Secretary-Generalship, which is introduced as a theoretical basis of
the Secretary-Generalship. Third, on that basis, two Scopes- the Role-Scope and the
Tolerance-Scope -are developed as the two preeminent factors that substantiate and
influence the Secretary-Generalship. Finally, it focuses on the intersection of the two
factors, here to be called the Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship, which corresponds to the actual range of action of the Secretary-General. The theoretical frame is
discussed in relation to four previous Secretaries-General with different focuses.
Keywords: United Nations, UN Secretaries-General, the role of the UN SecretaryGeneral
I. Introduction
The UN survived its elder brother, the League of Nations, and furthermore in
2005, celebrated its sixtieth anniversary whose symbolic significance provides “an opportunity for renewal and transformation toward greater fulfillment” and “a vital turning
∗
International Organizations, Graduate School of International Studies, Korea University, 5-1 Anam-dong,
Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea, 136-701; e-mail: [email protected].
I would like to record my thankfulness especially to Professor Chang-Rok Soh for his encouragement and
generous financial support for this research; His Excellency Soo-Gil Park for his having mentored me and
furnished insights; the UN Association of the Republic of Korea for its generous scholarship for the further research to be made on the UN. Lastly, I wish every success for the 8th UN Secretary-General, KiMoon Ban, to whom I also hope this paper sheds a light, if any, about the ever-challenging SecretaryGeneralship. The diagrams in the article were made by Jin-Hee Choi.
66 • Korea Review of International Studies
point.”1 Standing at such a critical juncture, the UN is now asked to show its effectiveness and relevancy in coping with the twenty-first century which is characterized by its
rapidly changing and interdependent world. Among the various ways of identifying effectiveness and relevancy of the UN, important is the quality of executive leadership,
which “may prove to be the most critical single determinant of the growth in scope and
authority of international organization.”2 It is because “[the Secretary-General’s] choice
of staff and his leadership will largely determine the character and efficiency of the Secretariat as a whole,” the performance of which in turn “largely determine[s] the degree
in which the objectives of the Charter will be realized.”3
However, understanding the Secretary-Generalship faces practical problems in
that “ups and downs” 4 has been one of the characteristics of the UN SecretaryGeneralship. Since “the officeholder has such wide latitude to shape the position,”5
whoever occupies the post defines the character of the Secretary-Generalship. This has
also made it difficult for scholars to frame a standardized or quantitative tool of analyzing the Secretary-Generalship due to “unquantifiable and indeed intangible variables.”6
Understanding the Secretary-Generalship seems to entail more of a subjective and qualitative approach than an objective and quantitative one. Against this backdrop, then,
“Can one construct a formula?”7 or “Can we know anything about the influence of the
secretary-general?”8 It might not be possible to construct a methodologically scientific
and systematic formula generating crystal-clear answer of ‘what is a Secretary-General?’
It is however plausible to think about an analytical tool, or framework, by which one,
based on empirical evidence, can understand why each Secretary-General behaves, or has
to behave, and why, among available options, they opt for a certain role. With this, the
question raised above could be, if not satisfactorily, replied in the affirmative.
The main hypothesis to be explored in this paper is as follows. Under the assumption that there are two scopes called the Role-Scope and the Tolerance-Scope, each
of which is essential in estimating the overall scope of the Secretary-Generalship, the
Role-Scope and the Tolerance-Scope, once combined together, result in ‘the Available
Range for the Secretary-Generalship.’ Before getting to the point, theoretical background will be provided in following chapters.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Ki Moon Ban, “The Republic of Korea and the UN at Sixty Years,” Plaza Hotel, Seoul (24 Oct. 2005). Ki
Moon Ban will be 8th Secretary-General as of 1 January 2007.
Robert W. Cox, “The Executive Head; An Essay on Leadership in International Organization,” International Organization, Vol. 23, No.2 (Winter 1969): 205.
Josef L. Kunz, “The Legal Position of the Secretary-General of the United Nations,” the American Journal of International Law, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1946): 790.
Simon Chesterman, “The Role of the UN Secretary General,” n.d., [www.iilj.org/research/Role_UNSG.
html].
Kent J. Kille, Leadership and Influence in the United Nations: A Comparative Analysis of the SecretariesGeneral, (Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, 2000): 6.
Benjamin Rivlin, “The UN Secretary-Generalship at Fifty,” in The United Nations in the New World Order: The World Organization at Fifty, ed. Dimitris Bourantouis and Jarrod Wiener (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996): 25.
Benjamin Rivlin, 1996: 25.
Jonathan Knight, “On the Influence of the Secretary-General: Can We Know What It Is?” International
Organization, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Summer, 1970): 597.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 67
II. Review of Literature
The UN Secretary-Generalship has been reviewed by a huge number of scholars
from a variety of points of view. After the establishment of the United Nations, the nature of the UN Secretary-Generalship was questioned with due attention to the differences with the League Secretary-General9 because this post, in a truly political nature,
would be the first of its kind in history. Initially controversial was how much political
latitude the Secretary-General would possess. As a natural sequence, researchers also
soon began paying a keen attention on to what variables, or constraints, could influence
the Secretary-General.10 To sum up, those variables could be roughly grouped into three
categories in accordance with their emphasis:
1) Political circumstances as an independent variable
2) Personality & leadership style as an independent variable
3) Relationship of legal and political constraints
It is noteworthy that “[m]ost scholars who write on the Secretary-General consider the political context to be the ultimate determinant of his influence”11and “most
work has had a remarkably limited focus on the actual individuals who hold the office.”12 Under this academic mainstream which mirrors somewhat the Realism perspective, it would not be strange to come to the conclusion that “the Secretary-General has
heretofore been the dependent variable while the Member States, particularly the major
powers, represent the independent variable.”13
However, this approach considerably underestimates “the human qualities of the
Secretary-General”14which could oftentimes defy such a dependent variable state. Certainly, “[w]hat the Secretary-General makes of his position is of course determined in
part by circumstances, but also in part by his own qualities-his strengths and weaknesses, his interests and ambitions, his ideas and values.”15 Additionally, UN history
has shown a number of cases in which “legal positions taken by previous [SecretariesGeneral] had an important political impact on [Security Council] deliberations.” 16
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Among those concerning the difference with the League Secretary-General, see Stephen M. Schwebel,
The Secretary-General of the United Nations: His Political Powers and Practice (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1952).
For initial researches in the regard, see Mark W. Zacher, “The Secretary-General: Some Comments on
Recent Research,” International Organization, Vol. 23, No. 4. (1969).
Ian Johnstone, “The role of the UN secretary-general: the power of persuasion based on law,” Global
Governance, (October, 2003): pp.10-11.
Kent J. Kille, p.4.
Benjamin Rivlin, “The Changing International Political Climate and the Secretary-General,” in The Challenging Role of the UN Secretary-General: Making “The Most Impossible Job in the World” Possible, ed.
Benjamin Rivlin and Leon Gordenker (London; Praeger, 1993): p.19.
Leon Gordenker, The UN Secretary-General and the Maintenance of the Peace (New York; Columbia
University Press, 1967): p.320, quoted from Kent J. Kille, p.1.
Inis L. Claude, Jr., “Reflections on the Role of the UN Secretary-General,” in Benjamin Rivlin and Leon
Gordenker (London: Praeger, 1993): p.260.
Ian Johnstone, p.5. In this regard, a glaring example is what Perez de Cuellar performed in the formation
68 • Korea Review of International Studies
Therefore, what has run counter to emphasizing ‘structural power’ gave rise to a group
of countering arguments stressing the officeholders’ personifying the SecretaryGeneralship which culminated in “great-man theory of international organization.”17
With the two approaches reviewed above, the remaining one takes a different
tack. While the former two approaches under review “have delineated many variables
which influence the political role of the Secretary-General and set forth numerous hypotheses on this matter,”18 the third approach ushers in a different focus on the relationship among constraints, or variables, influencing the Secretary-Generalship. This approach, in terms of its purpose, stands distinguished because it focuses on “the actual
range of action of the Secretary-General”19 rather than on under what ways “[the Secretary-General’s] powers were conquered.”20 Clearly, the former two approaches were
preoccupied with inquiring into independent variables acting on the SecretaryGeneralship resulting in studies that appear to have shed little light on how the role is
actually exercised in a particular way at a given moment.
In this regard, Jorge E. Viñuales tries to address “one of the major difficulties in
approaching the UN Secretary-General’s role in international politics, namely the interactions between the legal and political constraints to which he is subject.”21 With ‘legal/political scope of action’ introduced, what this approach tries to point out is that the
political role of the Secretary-General “takes place at a crossroad between the law and
politics,”22 signifying that “legal and political constraints shape the actual range of alternatives open to the Secretary-General in a given situation.”23
According to the main argument, the legal and political scopes are identified to
bring about two cases: one is the political scope of action being wider than the legal
scope of action (type 1), and vice versa (type 2).24 Hence, it is under each of these two
peculiar settings that the Secretary-General is situated to discharge both his mandated
and initiated roles. The biggest contribution it makes might be its innovative approach
to the Secretary-Generalship from the perspective of ‘scopes,’ not ‘variables,’ which can
contribute to a clearer framework than the ‘variable-oriented’ approach.25
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
of the International Seabed Regime deadlocked over more than ten years: “The real breakthrough…was
achieved…in formal consultations organized by Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar…” See more
in Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon, “Individual Leadership and Structural Power,” Canadian Journal of Political
Science (June 1997): p.269.
Robert W. Cox, “The Executive Head: An Essay on Leadership in International Organization,” International Organization, Vol. 23, No. 2. (Spring, 1969): p.209.
Mark W. Zacher, p.945.
Jorge E. Viñuales, The U.N. Secretary General between Law and Politics: Towards an Analytical Framework for Interdisciplinary Research (Geneva; The Graduate Institute of International Studies, 2005): p.3.
Ibid., p.3.
Ibid., Abstract in ⅸ. It also mentions that “the approach of the interaction between law and politics is virtually never spelled out in the literature on the Secretary-General.”
Ibid., p.27.
Ibid., p.27.
Ibid., p.35. See Table 1; these two types also diverge into two subtypes respectively. Subtypes represent
possible outcomes of each type.
Much of information that the ‘variable-oriented’ approach delivers pertains to causal relationship of what
triggers a specific role, thus blinding itself to the examination of how much the role is either curbed or
expanded and why it is so.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 69
For all the merit of this framework, however, this approach that Viñuales took is
not without also falling short of some hypothetical clearness. First of all, in analyzing
the actual range of action of the Secretary-General, the legal and political scopes are
emphasized to such a disproportionate degree that the personality effect on the Secretary-Generalship appears to have little room for consideration. Following Viñuales’s
argument, let alone the political scope that is translated into external political configurations beyond the reach of the Secretary-General, the legal scope lies also out of the Secretary-General’s control.26 Therefore, the Secretary-General is viewed as making no
contribution to forming the actual range of action of the Secretary-General.
Secondly, a theoretical backdrop against which both of the two scopes exist and
operate is not fully addressed. Although, when it comes to the legal scope, it is argued
that “there must be a frontier somewhere,”27 thus implying that it is within a certain
frame, no further serious consideration on such a frame is given. As for the political
scope, such frontiers are not explicitly discussed. Indeed, there is no systematic review
of the frame within which to observe the varying interaction of the two scopes. Scopes
being introduced, the absence of the frame within which such scopes are supposed to
exist might be a theoretical drawback to the extent that it could jeopardize the overall
validity of the research.
So far, a brief review of three typical approaches to the Secretary-Generalship
has been performed. It is to these foundations already laid by such previous studies that
this article is going to add another analytical framework.
III. The Nature of the UN Secretary-Generalship
The first reference that must be carefully examined so as to understand the Secretary-Generalship is the Charter of the United Nations, officially put into effect in 1945,
on which the United Nations, and its spirit, stands. Among Articles of the Charter, what
is explicitly relevant to the Secretary-Generalship is Article 7, 97 to 100. By these Articles, the Secretary-General is understood to be “the Chief Administrative Officer”28 and
“one of the principal organs of the United Nations.” 29 However, this reference, vague
as well as abstract, is not sufficiently clear enough to account for the multidimensional
nature of the Secretary-Generalship.
The second reference revealing much of the changing nature of the SecretaryGeneralship begins with the fact that “the vague provisions of the UN charter,”30 in
26
27
28
29
30
As touched upon just before, the legal scope is said to be created by the state of law and the state of the
meaning. The state of law being fixed literally, the state of the meaning holds the key to a degree to which
the legal scope is formed. Like what he notes; “what changes is not the legal wording, but meaning States
attribute to it,” it is implied that it is states not the Secretary-General that handle the meaning, thus deciding upon the legal scope in general. See more in Jorge E. Viñuales, p.33.
Ibid., p.35.
See the later part of Article 97 saying “He shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organization.”
See more Hans Kelsen, The Law of the United Nations: A Critical Analysis of its Fundamental Problems:
With Supplement (New York; Praeger, 2000): p.296; also Rüdiger Wolfrum , ed., United Nations: Law,
Policies and Practice, Vol. 2 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1995): p.1136.
Manuel Froehlich, “The Old and New UN Secretary-General,” Aussenpolitik, Vol. 3 (1997): p.303.
70 • Korea Review of International Studies
order for it to be precisely materialized in reality, inevitably entail “an element of interpretation.”31 A case in point that shows how the Secretary-General interprets a specific
charter provision is what Trygve Lie referred to about Article 99.32 Noting the lack of
clear provisions in the Charter with respect to the power of the Secretary-General, he
argued that, because he is legally entitled to invoke ‘an atomic bomb,’ by which he
means Article 9933, it should be taken for granted that he uses ‘the smaller rifles,’34
which is, although not found in the Charter, by implication to be allowed.
In addition to this interpretive nature of the Secretary-Generalship, what is also
necessary to understand is its conflicting characteristic. As Benjamin Rivlin has aptly
observed, “the UN Charter charges the Secretary-General with conflicting responsibilities: to act independently and to serve at the bidding of the Security Council and the
General Assembly.”35 Such a contradictory idea results from the Secretary-General’s
“dual capacity,”36 meaning that, according to the Charter, the Secretary-General is
“both the head of an independent organ and [a dependent] executive agent of deliberative main organs.”37 Indeed, the Secretary-Generalship is “envisaged as playing a dual
role”38 by the Charter, a “unique mixture of independence and dependence” as the
source from which “the authority for the political role of UN Secretary-General derives.”39
Caught in between these two roles, the fifth Secretary-General Perez De Cuellar
had ample reason to have remarked that “[the Charter] assigns two different functions to
the Secretary-General.”40 These different functions, one as ‘an agent’ of other principal
organs mandated by Article 98 and the other as ‘an independent office’ by Article 7,41
can drive the Secretary-General into a dilemma. Thus, here comes the necessity of the
Secretary-General walking a tightrope between the two conflicting functions.
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
Ian Johnstone, “The role of the UN secretary-general: the power of persuasion based on law,” Global
Governance, (October, 2003): p.4.
Stephen M. Schwebel, The Secretary-General of the United Nations: His Political Powers and Practice
(Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1952): p.205.
Article 99 reads; The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter
which in hi opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security. This provision is,
absent in the Covenant of the League, believed to provide a constitutional basis of the political role of the
Secretary-Generalship.
Trygve Lie is reported to have mentioned that “I can always ask for less than I am entitled to.” See Joseph
P. Lash, “Dag Hammarskjold’s Conception of his Office,” International Organization, Vol.16, No.3
(Summer, 1962): p.551.
Benjamin Rivlin, “The Changing International Political Climate and the Secretary-General,” in The Challenging Role of the UN Secretary-General: Making “The Most Impossible Job in the World” Possible, ed.
Benjamin Rivlin and Leon Gordenker (London; Praeger, 1993): p.17.
Javier Perez de Cuellar, “The Role of the UN Secretary-General,” in Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury, ed.: p.127.
Howard H. Lentner, “The Political Responsibility and Accountability of the United Nations SecretaryGeneral,” The Journal of Politics, Vol.27, No. 4 (Nov., 1965): p.843.
Benjamin Rivlin, 1996, p.81.
Howard H. Lentner, p.839.
Javier Perez de Cuellar, in Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury ed.: p.125. Italics mine.
Joseph P. Lash, “Dag Hammarskjold’s Conception of his Office,” International Organization, Vol. 16, No.
3 (Summer, 1962): p.548.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 71
Bearing in mind what has been considered, some generalization as to the Secretary-Generalship could be made. For a theoretical purpose, such various styles of the
Secretary-Generalship used to be generalized into two typical prototypes, 42 which
Claude claims “will dominate the concept of secretary-generalship of generations to
come”43: ‘Eric Drummond style’ and ‘Albert Thomas style.’
‘Eric Drummond style’ represents those who are of a more-Secretary-thanGeneral nature, thus emphasizing “administrative side of the Secretary-General’s function, faithfully executing whatever tasks may have been assigned to them.”44 Sir Eric
Drummond, credited with an invaluable effort to evolve the concept of a truly international civil service in a time when national interest predominated,45 was the first Secretary-General of the League. Applying “the British model of the loyal, impartial civil
servant”46 into the workings of the League, he championed that “the international Secretariat must be solely an administrative organ eschewing political judgments and actions.”47
Contrary to the concept of an international civil servant modeled by Eric Drummond, Albert Thomas, the first Director-General of the ILO, developed another tradition
of “independent international statesmanship.”48 ‘Albert Thomas style,’ second type of
the Secretary-General, represents those “who, in addition to their administrative function, look for new initiatives and try to promote the adoption by governments of these
initiatives.”49 This style is of a more-General-than-Secretary nature, so it goes beyond
the concept of ‘the international civil servant’ or ‘the Chief Administrative Officer.’ Actively participating in the affairs of the I.L.O. with strong executive leadership, 50
Thomas himself laid an empirical cornerstone of, and eventually left a lasting legacy of
the concept of “a spokesman of world interests.”51
All the UN Secretaries-General could then fall in somewhere between the two
styles. With a tentative generalization, Trygve Lie, Hammarskjold, Boutros BoutrosGhali, and Kofi Annan are said to have gone beyond the Drummond-like role, whose
status is vilified by critics as the “self-appointed political advocate,”52 while other Sec42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
In this regard, see more Chi Young Pak, The Political Role of the Secretary-General of the United Nations
in Theory and Practice (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1963): p.42; also Johan Kaufmann, Conference Diplomacy: An Introductory Analysis, 3rd revised ed. (Macmillan Press, 1996): pp.93-94.
Inis L. Claude, Swords into Plowshares, 4th ed., 1964, p.176, quoted from Johan Kaufmann, p.94.
Johan Kaufmann, p.94.
Eric Stein, “Mr. Hammarskjold, the Charter Law and the Future Role of the United Nations Secretary
General,” The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jan., 1962): p.11.
Norman A. Graham and Robert S. Jordan, ed., The International Civil Service: Changing Role and Concepts (UNITAR, 1980): p.18.
Eric Stein, p.12.
C. Wilfred Jenks, “Some Problems of an International Civil Service,” Public Administration Review, Vol.
3, No.2 (Spring, 1943): p.94.
Johan Kaufmann, p.94.
The leadership and legacy of Albert Thomas is well analyzed in Edward J. Phelan, Yes and Albert Thomas
(London: Cresset Press, 1949).
Charles Henry Alexandrowicz, “The Secretary-General of the United Nations,” The International and
Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol.11, No. 4 (Oct., 1962): p.1111.
Brett D. Schaefer, “A Progress Report on U.N. Reform,” Executive Summary Backgrounder (The Heritage Foundation, 19 May 2006): p.11.
72 • Korea Review of International Studies
retaries-General used to be content with “the self-restraining role”53as chief administrative officer.
Based on the two representative roles- administrative and political- of the Secretary-General as well as the changing and conflicting nature of it mentioned before, a
basic theoretical cornerstone of the Secretary-Generalship could be now formed, which
is to be called hereafter ‘the Legal-Sphere’ of Secretary-General. The Legal-Sphere is a
quadrangle sphere that corresponds to a hypothetical space created by the combination
of both horizontal and vertical axes, which stand respectively for administrative and
political roles of the Secretary-General.
It is viewed as ‘legal’ in that the ground of such a sphere existing roots in the
Charter for the Secretary-General to act within. Therefore, all the Secretary-Generalship
must take place within the boundary of the Legal-Sphere because the Secretary-General
is essentially none other than a constitutional entity whose action should be legal. Once
outside of it, the Secretary-General may not avoid being doomed to fatal failure. Detailed analysis following, the Legal-Sphere can be, first of all, diagrammatized as Figure
1 below:
Figure 1: The Legal-Sphere of the Secretary-Generalship
The Administrative Role
of the Secretary ⋅ Generalship
Y
The Legal-Sphere
of the Secretary ⋅ Generalship
The Political Role
of the Secretary ⋅ Generalship
X
IV. The Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship
1. The Role-Scope of the Secretary-General
With the Legal-Sphere in mind, one may question whether or not the sphere corresponds to the very scope within which the Secretary-General discharges his functions
at his disposal. The Role-Scope is measured by the Legal-Sphere of the SecretaryGeneral, the overall size of which however is going to be determined by both his own
conception of office and awareness of political settings.
53
UN Press Release 1035; Dag Hammarskjold, “The International Civil Servant in Law and in fact,” Oxford University, 30 May, 1961.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 73
A reason why the entire Legal-Sphere cannot naturally be viewed as the very legitimate scope for a Secretary-General is that the Secretary-General, with “the freedom
to invent himself,”54 does interpret his role, namely developing his own conception of
office, the resulting difference of which leads no Secretaries-General to be “an exact
duplicate of any other.”55 Depending on such a varying degree of conception of the
office, as has previously been handled, one could be either a Drummond-type SecretaryGeneral or a Thomas-type Secretary-General.
As such, there would be two types of Role-Scope according to its relationship
with the Legal-Sphere. In one case, the Role-Scope may go beyond the four corners of
the Legal-Sphere (to be called Type 2), while in the other it may exist within the four
corners of the Legal-Sphere (Type 1). A simplified theoretical illustration could help
discern between the two types as following Figure 2:
Figure 2: Two Styles of the Role-Scope
Y
Y
the Legal-Sphere
the Legal-Sphere
the Role-Scope
the Role-Scope
X
X
Type1_ The Role-Scope Within The Legal-Sphere
Type2_ The Role-Scope Beyond The Legal-Sphere
Each Secretary-General belongs to either of them with varying degree. With generalization, Trygve Lie, Hammarskjold, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan may be
classified into ‘Type 2,’ whereas U Thant, Kurt Waldheim, Perez de Cuellar seem to
have had their Role-Scope remain inside of the Legal-Sphere, thereby being classified
into ‘Type 1.’
2. The Tolerance-Scope of the Secretary-General
One of the reasons why the Role-Scope cannot also become the very range in
which the Secretary-General exerts his leadership is that, as opposed to “the American
chief executive,” the UN Secretary-General enjoys “no organized or direct means of
support.”56 The Secretary-General may take an innovative initiative and outline great
ideas, but reluctance of member states often coupled with their not financing for a vari54
55
56
Thomas M. Franck, Nation Against Nation: What happened to the U.N. Dream And What the U.S. Can
Do About It (New York; Oxford University Press, 1985): p.118.
Inis L. Claude, Jr, in The Challenging Role of the UN Secretary-General, p.254.
Chi Young Pak, p.78.
74 • Korea Review of International Studies
ety of reasons is most likely to create a paper tiger no matter who the Secretary-General
is at that point.
In consequence, the Secretary-General’s “discretion may be narrower than it appears.”57 The Secretary-General has never been “given a carte blanche”58 with which
to conduct whatever he wishes to do. Also remarkable is the indispensability of “the
sensitivity of the Secretary-General to the limits of tolerance of Permanent Members of
the Security Council, which will enable him to do things that these states would not
necessarily endorse but merely tolerate.”59
In light of this, the Tolerance-Scope can be hypothesized here as an area only
within which the Secretary-General is tolerated to discharge his roles irrespective of
whether such roles are inside the Role-Scope or not. To put it differently, the ToleranceScope may indicate an area, definitely located within the Legal-Sphere, where the action
of the Secretary-General is allowed and regarded as legitimate by the big five, in particular.
Similar to the foresaid conditions influencing the Legal-Sphere into the creation
of the Role-Scope, the existence of variables conditioning the Tolerance-Scope can be
identified. Simon Chesterman goes so far as to unfold variables limiting the SecretaryGeneralship by saying that “[a]t once civil servant and secular pope, he depends on
states for both the legitimacy and resources that make the United Nations possible.”60
Those two, for which the Secretary-General has to depend on states, are the focal point
deserving careful consideration vis-à-vis the Tolerance-Scope. Such being the case, the
successful leadership of the Secretary-General hinges largely upon ensuring both of
them. These two conditions combined can be conceptualized here to become the Tolerance-Scope. For a conceptual convenience, the Tolerance-Scope will be analyzed according to the two sub-spheres; the impartiality-sphere relating to ‘legitimacy,’ and the
politics-sphere relating to ‘resources.’
2.1 The Impartiality-Sphere
Impartiality is a prerequisite for the Secretary-General to later enable him to attract the necessary resources to perform roles. No matter how many resources might
marshal, without the Secretary-General’s clinging to impartiality, the odds of success
are mostly against him. The term, impartiality, “is not expressly used in the UN Charter
or other constitutional instruments of International Organization.”61 Nevertheless, it is
through a series of the role’s developments over time that impartiality became “the heart
and soul of the office of the Secretary-Generalship.”62 It is not an overstatement since
57
58
59
60
61
62
Thomas M. Franck and Georg Nolte, “The Good Offices Function of the UN Secretary-General,” in
United Nations, Divided World, p.174.
Benjamin Rivlin, 1996, p.93.
Benjamin Rivlin, 1993, p.17.
Simon Chesterman, Great Expectations: UN Reform and the Role of the Secretary-General, Security Dialogue, Vol. 36, No. 3 (September, 2005): p.376. Italics mine.
Oscar Schachter, “The International Civil Servant: Neutrality and Responsibility,” in Dag Hammarskjold
Revisited, p.41.
Javier Perez de Cuellar, in United Nations, Divided World, p.135. For an example, Increasing requirements for the Secretary-General to be engaged in conflict need him to stay impartial.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 75
just a single failure of the Secretary-General of securing impartiality, thus being
stamped as partial, tends to cost him future support coming out of member states and,
more importantly, the credibility of the office itself. Therefore, the following remark is
befitting; impartiality “is the severest demand the job makes on the Secretary-General.”63
Once within the impartiality-sphere, the Secretary-General ensures the legitimacy of a role, an action, namely the possibility of performing the role and the action.
However, possibility is one thing, and implementation is another. The impartialitysphere is just the first prerequisite for the Tolerance-Scope insomuch that the member
states perceive the Secretary-General as impartial. Another condition is necessary for
the possibility to change into implementation as below.
2.2 The Politics-Sphere
Legitimacy itself is not a physical power. So, the impartiality-sphere alone cannot give the Secretary-General power to proceed because “his political position [as the
Secretary-General] is not sufficiently strong to permit him to oppose a major power.”64
The political climate can hinder the performance of the Secretary-General although it
may lie inside the impartiality-sphere.
The politics-sphere is hypothesized to be an area within which member states,
especially the permanent member states, seeing their interests not encroached, are willing to provide what is necessary to the Secretary-General to enable him to pursue some
roles. Accordingly, it could be argued that any mission perceived to be within the politics-sphere stands a great chance of being supported with necessary resources. The Secretary-General thus tends to remain sensitive and careful not to go far beyond the politics-sphere.
Key factors conditioning the politics-sphere would be sovereignty of states and
their national interests because the Secretary-General works within “a world of independent sovereign States, where national interests remain dominant.”65 It is not a charity organization but an organization whose hidden purpose was initially designed to
revolve around keeping the status quo, or the balance of power, in a sense.
As interests may vary from time to time, the politics-sphere can accordingly
change. Sovereignty remaining untouchable, changing national interests over time may
bring subsequent modification to the politics-sphere. Therefore, it is plausible that what
has not been regarded as inside the politics-sphere becomes what belongs to the politicssphere. The newly established Human Rights Council in 2006 could be a case in point.
3. The Intersection of the Two Scopes
3.1 The Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship
So far, the Role-Scope and the Tolerance-Scope have been discussed as a preliminary process before arriving at the final argument. The Role-Scope has been argued
63
64
65
Ibid., p.134.
Leland M. Goodrich, 1961, p.731.
U Thant, “The Role of the Secretary-General,” United Nations Office of Public Information, 1971. Italics
mine.
76 • Korea Review of International Studies
to show a portion of the Legal-Sphere within which the Secretary-General feels confident in discharging his roles or missions. That is why looking at the Role-Scope offers
valuable information on how far or extent the Secretary-Generalship is likely to exercise
his roles. On the other hand, the Tolerance-Scope has been argued to indicate another
portion of the Legal-Sphere only within which the UN member states feel the SecretaryGeneral is allowed to perform his duties and rights.
Taking the two Scopes into account, the concern is now turned to the overlapping
section of the two Scopes. The intersection of the two Scopes could be identified with
‘the lowest common denominator’ of the two Scopes where the Secretary-General and
the big five in particular all feel like doing what each of them is expected to do; the Secretary-General is eager to perform a role and the big five are willing to support the Secretary-General. The Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship is expected to serve
as an analytical tool by which to understand how the Secretary-Generalship has been
differently exercised from one Secretary-General to another. Chi Young Pak provides a
hypothetical basis for the Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship:
As long as the Secretary-General remains a truly international statesman representing the Organization, he can exercise his political powers
as far as he can develop them under the Charter.66
The exercise of Secretary-Generalship, he argues, depends on two options of ‘as
long as’ and ‘as far as.’ With some hypothetical modification being added, the statement
above could be paraphrased into a proposition that “as long as the Secretary-General
lies inside the Tolerance-Scope, he can exert his political powers as far as he envisions
the Role-Scope.” To make it even shorter, it would be that the Secretary-General can
conduct any roles, or initiate any missions, inside of the Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship. A simplified hypothetical diagram is presented as Figure 3 below:
Figure 3: The Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship
The Administrative Role
of the Secretary ⋅ Generalship
Y
The Tolerance ⋅ Scope
The Role-Scope
The Available Range
For the Secretary ⋅ Generalship
The Political Role
of the Secretary ⋅ Generalship
66
Chi Young Pak, p.87. Italics mine.
X
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 77
V. Case Studies
This part will examine the selected cases of four Secretaries-General analyzed
through the framework that has been developed so far, that is to say, the Available
Range for the Secretary-Generalship.
1. Trygve Lie
As the first Secretary-General,67 he seems to have enjoyed a double-edged privilege resulting from the fact that at the time Secretary-Generalship was a largely uncharted territory. Hence, on the one hand he was honored for embarking upon uncharted
waters to become the first to explore the potentials of the Secretary-Generalship.68 On
the other hand, unaware of where the ‘sunken rock’ laid, he lost his honor when he suffered the consequences of striking such a hidden pitfall; he initially did not know “how
loud and visible the secretary-general of the United Nations ought to be.”69
Trygve Lie’s seven years70 of functioning as the “precedent-setting”71 Secretary-General can only be evaluated in consideration of the Cold War and the impact of
the East-West conflict. Much of his optimism for the UN as the vehicle for bringing
about a peaceful world suddenly faded away after the Iran and Berlin crises. Disillusioned by the power tug-of-war in the Security Council, the body that was supposed to
take full responsibility for peace and security, he plunged into “the fight to salvage the
dream of world order”72 to the point where he took “the unprecedented step of defying
the majority of the Council.”73 His famous ‘Twenty-Year Peace Plan,’ or ‘Ten Points,’74
was the culmination of such efforts. Then came the Korean War, whose dealing he
proudly assessed “was the best justified act of seven years in the service of peace.”75
Notwithstanding ‘the middle road’ approach76 which in fact would prove to be
“a personal minefield,”77he developed enemies from almost all corners. Lie chronically
stood embroiled in dissatisfaction and disappointment coming from the two major players in the Cold War because he “provided leadership too openly and independently” yet
“without sufficient care to have the support of those whose approval was necessary.”78
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
For a detailed procedure clarifying how he became the first occupant, see James Barros, 1989.
Stephen M. Schwebel, p.54.
Stanley Melsler, Untied Nations: The First Fifty Years (The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995): p.31.
For a detailed analysis of his Secretary-Generalship, see Elmore Jackson, “the Developing Role of the
Secretary-General,” International Organization, Vol. 11, No. 3 (summer, 1957): pp.431-445.
Ibid., p.23.
Anthony Gaglione, The Untied Nations Under Trygve Lie, 1945-1953 (The Scarecrow Press, 2001): p.42.
Ibid., p.45.
Ibid., p.43. For a full summary of the ‘Ten Points,’ see Raymond B. Fosdick, p.91.
Stanley Melsler, The Atlantic Monthly Press, p.57.
Lie is quoted to say that “I have tried to take a commonsense middle course, conscious always of my responsibility to stand only for the interests of the United Nations as a whole.” Refer to Raymond B. Fosdick, p.86.
Anthony Gaglione, p.45.
L. M. Goodrich, The United Nations, p.140, quoted from Chi Young Pak, p.259.
78 • Korea Review of International Studies
His frequent “role of General more than Secretary”79 which had a bearing on his liberal
interpretation of the Secretary-Generalship accelerated discord with the Great Powers.
Lie’s memorandum submitted to the Security Council regarding the Iranian crisis
could be a good case for further examination.80 Without any precedent of the SecretaryGeneral intervening in the political debate of the Security Council, Lie’s Role-Scope
went definitely beyond the legal-sphere of the day. This ‘transgression’ also triggered a
debate in the Security Council since the Tolerance-Scope had not been defined conclusively at the time. However, under the influence of the Soviet Union seeing the Secretary-General’s such right conducive to their interest in conjunction to the Iranian case, a
Security Council rule was formulated favorably.
The above being an exceptional case, the Tolerance-Scope was not always favorable to Trygve Lie. It was obvious that he, as “a hostage to the Cold War,”81 was
chronically confronted with the lesser Tolerance-Scope vis-à-vis his Role-Scope. Accentuated by the East-West rivalry, what he did was to tie his roles to the Charter in the
hope that he would then stay immune from its impact82 only to become mired in a continuous confrontation with the Soviet Union, and to a lesser degree the United States.
In that context, one interesting feature would be the fact that the political deadlock manifested in the Security Council seemed to have left so implicit a space, or vacuum in the Tolerance-Scope that Lie’s actual room for maneuver, here the Available
Range for the Secretary-Generalship, became larger than it appeared. Lie might have
interpreted the Tolerance-Scope paralyzed by the impotence of the big five into the widened Tolerance-Scope. So, taking advantage of such a space, Lie experimented with the
limits of his new job in a relatively undisturbed manner83 while conceiving “the office
of the Secretary-General in a statesmanlike way.”84 Indeed, the quasi enlarged Tolerance-Scope matched Lie’s liberal and positive Role-Scope for a while, and created a
fake Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship by which Lie was greatly misled
into thinking that his proactive leadership would be further tolerated. Of course, especially when the Soviet Union started to see things from their perspective, Trygve Lie
found himself entrapped in a quasi Tolerance-Scope. Incapable of coming out of such a
quagmire, he suffered this great ordeal, the culmination of which was his forceful resignation in 1953. Hammarskjold began in a similar setting but the result was not the same,
to which concern is now turned.
2. Dag Hammarskjold
Elected as the Secretary-General “at a time when the UN was really no more
than a debating society,”85 Dag Hammarskjold is said to have provided “the most dy79
80
81
82
83
84
85
Chi Young Pak, p.258.
Stanley Melsler, the Atlantic Monthly Press, p.32.
Anthony Gaglione, p.122.
Ibid., p.124.
Leon Gordenker, The UN Secretary-General and Secretariat (Routledge, 2005): p.11.
Charles H. Alexandrowicz, p.1117.
Walter Lippmann, “Dag Hammarskjold, United Nations Pioneer,” International Organization, Vol.15, No.
4 (autumn, 1961): p.548.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 79
namic leadership”86 through which he “took his office to new height”.87 Starting as “a
quiet, relatively non-controversial international civil servant”88 in line with the Drummond tradition,89 he gradually unfolded his grand scheme based on his sticking to the
principles of the Charter as well as his inspiring conception of the office.
However, his full-blown Secretary-Generalship surfacing in the late 1950s was
counterbalanced by confronting and ever-increasing criticism, especially from the Soviet Union. It was in this context that Khrushchev pounded his shoes in the General Assembly and, reaffirming that “we do not trust Mr. Hammarskjold,”90 submitted the famous ‘Troika’ proposal; the abolishment of the single Secretary-General and the installment of the triumvirate Secretaries-General.
Dag was initially reluctant to embrace the thought of UNEF (United Nations
Emergency Force),91 which was an innovative thought at that time. However, he gradually displayed confidence in dealing with the Suez Canal crisis to such a point that,
against the lukewarm reaction of the Council members in taking real actions, he requested a vote of confidence in the Security Council, at which time, especially Britain
and France, the two of the three involved parties resulting in the crisis, were present and
eventually acknowledged the duties of the Secretary-General with respect to safeguarding the principles of the Charter.92 Similarly, the same Role-Scope of his was applied to
the Hungarian case in accordance with a General Assembly resolution mandating the
Secretary-General to “as soon as possible suggest methods to bring an end to foreign
intervention in Hungary.”93 Efforts of sending UN observers and the paying of a personal visit by the Secretary-General himself having been rejected, Hammarskjold realized that “there was little he could do to alter the course of events.”94
With the Role-Scope remaining the same, what made different the result of those
two crises could be found on the part of the Tolerance-Scope having changed. In the
case of the Suez Canal crisis, as has been stated shortly before, “the parties at fault accepted the principles of the Charter and agreed to be guided by the recommendations of
the General Assembly.”95 As such, the Secretary-General, as mandated by the resolution, managed to get through the crisis. On the contrary, when it came to the Soviet in86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
Edward Newman, p.48.
Ibid., p.40.
Robert S. Jordan, “The Legacy which Dag Hammarskjold inherited and his Imprint on it,” in Dag Hammarskjold Revisited: pp.6-7.
In this regard, Leland M. Goodrich also argues that “Hammarskjold appears to have initially conceived
his role as Secretary-General in very modest terms, giving substance to the early expectation that he
would conduct himself pretty much in the manner of Sir Eric Drummond, the first Secretary-General of
the League.” See Leland. M. Goodrich, 1974: p.477.
Henry P. Van Dusen, Dag Hammarskjold: The Statesman and His Faith (Harper & Row, 1964): p.152.
Leland M. Goodrich, “Hammarskjold, the UN, and the Office of the Secretary-General,” International
Organization, Vol. 28, No. 3 (summer, 1974): p.478. He figures out that “though he received, and was entitled to, great credit for the successful establishment and operation of the United Nations Emergency
Force (UNEF), the original idea was not his own, and he was initially doubtful regarding its feasibility.”
Stanley Meisler, the Atlantic Monthly Press, p.109.
Peter B. Heller, The United Nations Under Dag Hammarskjold, 1953-1961 (The Scarecrow Press, 2001):
p.74.
Ibid., p.72.
Leland M. Goodrich. 1974: p.478.
80 • Korea Review of International Studies
vasion upon Hungary, “there was no willingness [for the Soviet Union] to abide by a
General Assembly resolution,” 96 thus in that regard allowing no space for Hammarskjold’s endeavor no matter how prepared his Role-Scope was at that moment.
Those crises show the differing results of the Available Range for the SecretaryGeneralship according to the Tolerance-Scope changing with the Role-Scope remaining
constant.
Another focal point to be examined is the Congo crisis that led “to the fullest application of Hammarskjold’s evolving concept of his powers and responsibilities,”97
and also to his sudden and mysterious death by an airplane crash in the course of his
mission.98 By the call of the newly independent Congolese government for “urgent dispatch by the United Nations of military assistance,”99 Hammarskjold invoked for the
first time Charter Article 99 to call on the Security Council for a special session. To
make a long story short, the Secretary-Generalship eventually became caught between a
Security Council resolution urging him to take necessary steps in consultation with the
central Congolese government and the reality that the government, with which Dag was
supposed to collaborate with, was broken into several rival governments by an internal
feud.
It was under such foggy circumstances that the Soviet Union leveled severe criticism on Dag Hammarskjold. In response to such a charge characterizing him as a
“United Nations Field Marshal,” or “Prime Minister of a World Government,”100 Hammarskjold defended that “[i]t is not the Soviet Union or, indeed, any other big Powers
who need the United Nations for their protection; it is all the others. In this sense the
Organization is first of all their organization.”101
In a sense, it could be argued that “a large element of Hammarskjold’ success
was fortuitous and dependent upon a certain alignment of circumstances,”102 by which
it may mean the opportune support of the newly emerging developing states. However,
clear is that without his own personality, namely his Role-Scope, “the UN could never
have become what it is today and might well have followed the League of Nations into
oblivion as an operating political institution.”103 As a man “ahead of his time” 104 and
“of next generation,”105 Dag Hammarskjold seemed to have explored the full possibilities of the Available Range achievable by the Secretary-Generalship.
96
Ibid., p.478.
Ibid., p.480.
98
For those who are interested in the mysterious accident, See Gavshon, The Mysterious Death of Dag
Hammarskhjold (Walker and Company, 1962); also his anther book, the Last Days of Dag Hammarskjold
(Barrie and Rockliff with Pall Mall Press, 1963).
99
Peter B. Heller, pp.119-120.
100
Ibid., p.130.
101
Raymond B. Fosdick, The League and the United Nations: the Six Secretaries-General (Connecticut,
1972): p.132.
102
Edward Newman, p.47
103
Hans J. Morgenthau, Truth and Power: Essays of a Decade, 1960-70 (Prarger, 1970): p.122.
104
Chi Young Pak, p.265.
105
Peter B. Heller, p.151.
97
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 81
3. Javier Perez de Cuellar
Perez de Cuellar, the fifth UN Secretary-General, was appointed as the first Secretary-General from Latin America, and would be the last Secretary-General among the
Trio Secretaries-General after Hammarskjold, who are characterized as so by their
commonly having “had to work within the limits set by the Cold War,”106 and more
significantly, by the era in which they served witnessing the UN at a low ebb.107 The
UN was clearly “at its nadir when Perez de Cuellar became the Secretary-General.”108
His Secretary-Generalship lasting from 1982 to 1992 could be glaringly divided
into two periods that interestingly correspond with his two terms; the first term greatly
colored by the Cold War and the second term ‘graduating’ from the Cold War yet entering into a new phase, the post-Cold War.109 During his first term, Perez’s SecretaryGeneralship was “marked by much effort but little accomplishment”110 in such cases as
the Falkland crisis and the Iran-Iraq war.
As for his Role-Scope, firstly, Perez de Cuellar found it comfortable to pursue
“the normal, precedent-based behavior,”111 not attempting “any initiatives as broadly
conceived as Lie and Hammarskjold had undertaken on their own” but rather working
“with ameliorative or adjusting intentions within the framework of existing missions.”112 His Role-Scope being so, his Tolerance-Scope was, for the reason mentioned
before with relation to the Trio Secretaries-General, also narrow. The Available Range
for the Secretary-Generalship, formed by the intersection of the Role-Scope and the
Tolerance-Scope, was accordingly far limited by the downsized Role-Scope and the
narrow Tolerance-Scope. Given the limited Available Range for the SecretaryGeneralship, the meeting with poor results during his first term was not without reason.
However, the whole story had not completely unfolded. It was by his second
term as the Secretary-General that Perez de Cuellar eventually was hailed as “the most
successful UN leader.”113 Since “[h]e was not a different man during his second term in
office,”114 the cause must have been anything else: a different political environment, so
to speak, the end of the Cold War. It was “[i]mmediately after the Cold War there was a
blossoming of UN activity in this area, and commensurately the political role of the
Secretary-General.”115 What becomes clear now is that Perez de Cuellar’s increased
Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship during his second term was promoted by
the impressively widened Tolerance-Scope, not by his Role-Scope. This shows how
sufficient enlargement of the Tolerance-Scope produces an expanded Available Range
106
Leon Gordenker, 2005, p.79.
Robert E. Riggs and Jack C. Plano, The United Nations: International Organization and World Politics,
2nd ed. (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994): p.77.
108
Edward Newman, p.64.
109
Javier Perez de Cuellar, 1997, pp.12-13.
110
Robert E. Riggs and Jack C. Plano, p.94.
111
Leon Gordenker, 2005, p.81.
112
Ibid., p.80.
113
George J. Lankevich, The United Nations Under Javier Perez De Cuellar, 1982-1991 (The Scarecrow
Press, 2001): p.18.
114
Robert E. Riggs and Jack C. Plano, p.94.
115
Edward Newman, p.70.
107
82 • Korea Review of International Studies
for the Secretary-General to meet with good results.
In that regard, the Iraq-Kuwait crisis is “significant in indicating possible trends
in the Office of Secretary-General when the Security Council is in consent or under the
will of activist states.”116 Various resolutions were issued as regards the situation urging
Iraq to withdraw unconditionally. However, “[f]or the most part, the resolutions adopted
by the Council excluded a role for the Secretary-Generalship”117 to such a noticeable
degree that a Yemen representative was reported to say “the Council has not for a long
time come up with one resolution that would give the Secretary-General a free hand and
clearly mandate him to engage in mediation efforts.”118 As was the case of the Cold
War, it happened that the Secretary-General “was actually only able to communicate the
Council’s demand,” and had “no room for maneuver, no independence from the Council
in the tradition of the Peking formula.”119
Actually, the activism of the Security Council reduced the political void, or vacuum, that had been left for the Secretary-General to fill, which would result in the
abridgement of the Secretary-Generalship. As long as the Big Five directly handled political affairs, the Secretary-General would not be required to go so far as to risk ‘filling
the vacuum’ in a way that had so frequently been done by Hammarskjold.
4. Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who became the first African Secretary-General and took
the oath of the office in Arabic, began with his first term in an atmosphere that ‘Can-do
spirit’ regarding “a positive and central role for the UN and its Secretary-General to
meet the peace and security needs of the International community”120 prevailed among
member states. This was mirrored in an unprecedented summit meeting of the Security
Council in 1992 where the Secretary-General was mandated to “produce a blueprint for
preventing and ending conflicts, as well as for restoring and building peace.”121 It was
with “the green light”122 signaling the unclosed Tolerance-Scope that Boutros-Ghali’s
Role-Scope was in the ascendant. As for his Role-Scope, Boutros-Ghali seems to have
been “at least as active as Hammarskjold” and “just as effective as expanding the role of
the office.”123 As such, he “imposed an activist stamp upon his office which has set the
tone for the post-Cold War model”124 of the Secretary-Generalship.
Acting as if he was “an international player,”125 Boutros-Ghali “became the
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
Edward Newman, p.100.
Vladimir Avakov, “The Secretary-General in the Afghanistan Conflict, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Gulf
Crisis,” in The Challenging Role of the UN Secretary-General, p.167.
UN Doc. S/PV2963; recited in ibid., p.167.
Edward Newman, p.101.
Benjamin Rivlin, 1996: p.91.
Stephen F. Burgess, The United Nations Under Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 1992-1997 (The Scarecrow Press,
2001): p.9.
Edward Newman, p.119.
Stanley Meisler, the Atlantic Monthly Press, p.279.
Edward Newman, p.189.
Stanley Meisler, p.279.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 83
most stubbornly independent Secretary-General in the half century of the United Nations.”126 In a lecture at Oxford University, Boutros-Ghali clarified that “if one word
above all is to characterize the role of the Secretary-General it is independence.”127 This
did not end with verbal conviction. Quite differently from his predecessor Perez de
Cuellar, he rarely showed up in the private consultations of the Security Council as if
those were wasteful for a Secretary-General.128 Nor did he circulate drafts to the Big
Five to ‘test the water.’129
Accused of being “chief executive officer of the world,” and “the world’s commander-in-chief,”130 he was also castigated by member states for having “repeatedly
told the Security Council what it should or should not do”131 as if he were handling
students in a class: he indeed brought into his office professor-style SecretaryGeneralship in dealings with member states as he had taught students at the University
of Cairo for as many as twenty-eight years.
The Available Range for Boutros-Ghali, which climaxed in his ‘An Agenda for
Peace,’ started to considerably diminish in concurrence with the realization of the member states that “the optimism exhibited at the time of the summit was dissipated”132
especially throughout the Bosnia and the Somalia crises. In 1993, the killings of eighteen U.S. rangers in a somewhat rash operation to capture a rebellion leader put a final
end to the ‘new world order with active UN’ to which “the Bush administration paid lip
service”133 while not taking any substantial action to avert ethnic cleansing. As has
been true of other Secretaries-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, as a convenient scapegoat, came under strong criticism for his “having brought about the failure of the peacekeeping missions in Somalia and in the former Yugoslavia through his unclear and chaotic action.”134
This is distinct from Hammarskjold who survived such political pressure by substituting the third developing states for the opposing powers in order to secure resources
to proceed: although to a lesser degree, the Tolerance-Scope could be maintained.
Boutros-Ghali tried to walk a one-scope rope. He chose to keep fighting, thus forcing
the Council to, as he himself expressed, ‘assassinate’ him.135
VI. Conclusion
This article has attempted to provide an analytical tool to enhance the under126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
Ibid., p.277.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “Secretary-General, in Lecture at Oxford, Speaks of Globalization, Fragmentation and Consequent Responsibilities on UN,” 1 Jan. 1996.
Stanley Meisler, p.284.
Ibid., p.292.
Ibid., p.279.
Benjamin Rivlin, 1996, p.96.
Ibid., p.95.
Stephen F. Burgess, p.12.
Manuel Froehlich, p.97.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, p.325.
84 • Korea Review of International Studies
standing of the UN Secretary-Generalship, which has been a unique factor in the arena
of International Relations. In summary, because of the interpretive nature of the Charter
coupled with the dual mandate of the Secretary-Generalship, the Legal-Sphere, represented by the X-axis, the political scale, and the Y-axis, the administrative scale, has
been proposed as a basis of Secretary-Generalship. Against this backdrop, the two
Scopes – the Role-Scope and the Tolerance-Scope – have been suggested: the RoleScope is a portion of the Legal-Sphere, whose overall size is to be settled either within
the Legal-Sphere or beyond the Legal-Sphere according to the Secretary-General’s conception of the office. Within the Role-Scope, the Secretary-General feels confident and
legitimate in discharging his roles.
On the other hand, because of the nature of his status, he has to both rely on
member states for resources and secure legitimacy for his roles. Thus the ToleranceScope comprising the impartiality-sphere and the politics-sphere has been hypothesized
to represent another portion of the Legal-Sphere within which the Secretary-General is
supported with resources and viewed as impartial and legitimate. With the two Scopes
on the Legal-Sphere, the intersection or ‘the lowest common denominator’ of the two
Scopes is hypothesized to be the Available Range for the Secretary-Generalship, and has
corresponded to the actual range of action available to the Secretary-General, within
which the Secretary-General performs missions that are fully supported with resources
by the member states.
This paper concludes by quoting what Soo Gil Park, then president of the UN
Security Council, stated with regards to Secretary-Generalship, which is strikingly in
accord with what has been discussed throughout the whole paper:
Depending on the varying, dynamic interpretation of the Article 99, a
Secretary-General can be identified either as a political SecretaryGeneral or as an administration-indulged one. However, sovereign states,
of which the United Nations is an organization, can constrict the Secretary-Generalship whenever they see their interests as sovereign states are
doomed to wane.136
Indeed, the Secretary-General has walked, and will continue to walk, on a ‘twoScope’ tightrope. The tightrope being oftentimes complicated and frustrating, it is a matter of course that the UN Secretary-Generalship should be “one of the most rewarding”137 in the world. As the Charter has oftentimes been called ‘a living Charter,’ the
Secretary-Generalship may also be seen as ‘a living Secretary-Generalship.’
136
137
This is quoted from the author’s conversation with Soo-Gil Park on 4 May 2006. He served as then
president of the UN Security Council in 1997, and is currently the president of the UN Association of the
Republic of Korea.
U Thant, 1971.
The UN Secretary-General “Walking a Two-Scope Rope” • 85
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