UNITED NATIONS: For the first time ever, the 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly participated in a new and transparent process on Tuesday to approve or recommend a name for the world body’s new chief.

The president of the General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, who kicked off the process of selection, said: “We are sailing into uncharted waters here”.

Calling the process a “potential game-changing exercise”, he said the informal briefings were part of a “very transparent, very interesting discussion about the future of the United Nations”.

Over the course of next three days, the official candidates — currently eight of them — will answer questions related to promoting sustainable development, how to improve efforts to create peace, how to protect human rights, how to deal with huge humanitarian catastrophes, and how to resolve challenges defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Mr Lykketoft said that one single candidate could emerge at the end of the process, making it difficult for the Security Council – which is tasked with making the official selection, as stated in the UN Charter – to choose another candidate.

But all said and done, according to the UN Charter, the new chief has to be approved by the 15-member Security Council in which five permanent members have the veto power. Any permanent member can veto a candidate.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2016