The process is underway to choose the new UN Secretary-General. Candidates have been declared and hearings held. With Security Council deliberations pending, the situation is revealing of the condition of the international system, and the distance between what that system claims to be and what it has become. Today, the questions about who is best placed to lead may appear familiar. They are, however, no longer the most revealing questions.
What is harder to look away from is whether a process so visibly shaped by great power interest can produce the leadership the institution actually needs. The two things are not obviously compatible. That tension is what the coming months will test.
Moments of strain at the UN are not new. The selections of 2006 and 2016 both illustrated the gap between stated criteria and the political reality at the time. Between the language of merit and the logic of power. Each case deserves its own reading and when taken together, they suggest something consistent. Informal dynamics are often more important than formal criteria. The gap between declared principle and actual practice has widened. This is something more and more people are now willing to admit.
This does not mean that the institution has stopped working. Processes continue and the language of multilateralism remains. Member states still feel the need to justify themselves within the formal framework. However, now there are subtler changes underway. The centre of gravity has shifted away from shared purpose. Increasingly, it leans toward something more transactional and subject to preferences of those with the power to shape outcomes.
Legitimacy, in this context, begins to matter as much as procedure. The P5 hold a determining influence that no volume of civil society advocacy or General Assembly sentiment can fully override. This is something that Global South states have been saying this for years. Now is being more widely heard.
The consequence runs deeper than procedural unfairness. When the selection of a Secretary-General is seen to reflect the preferences of the powerful rather than the fitness of candidates, the position loses moral authority before the new incumbent has even begun. This is not formally a problem, but is intensely felt by those who depend on the institution’s credibility.
For states outside the P5 this presents a familiar and frustrating reality. There is, in principle, more space than ever to make the case for a genuinely independent Secretary-General. One that is capable of real mediation. Willing to push back. Attentive to the breadth of the UN’s mandate rather than only its most politically urgent corners. Whether the selection process can deliver is another question. The structural constraints will also be significant.
Gender has played a more significant role than previous elections. There has been a sustained push for a first-ever female Secretary-General. This has shaped how this process has been publicly framed. Rebeca Grynspan and Maria Fernanda Espinosa are seen as two serious contenders. Nevertheless, there seems to be a gap between what the public conversation expects and what Security Council dynamics produce. Progress of this kind moves more slowly than the surrounding discourse implies.
Perhaps the more durable contribution of advocacy lies in keeping alive the development agenda and human rights. These are often the concerns of states that do not sit at the Security Council table. These concerns have largely been crowded out by the dominance of peace and security in the current climate. This is not incidental. It reflects narrowing trust and expectation of the UN. Unfortunately, no appointment, however well-chosen, will reverse this on its own.
The next Secretary-General will inherit a teetering world undergoing changes. Economic instability, across the developing and developed world, is generating pressures that existing multilateral mechanisms were not built to absorb. At the same time, the institution will remain exposed and dependent on financial contributions. This carries political weight and may destabilise the institutions even further.
In such conditions leadership will prove important. This is not because an individual appointment resolves structural problems. Instead, it is because leadership shapes how the institution sees itself. What it believes about itself. A Secretary-General perceived as independent and chosen through a process that is genuinely seen as legitimate will definitely change its standing. The reverse can equally be true.
While there are pressures, the norms governing the process have not actually changed. Expectations around regional rotation, gender representation and demonstrated competence remain central to the conversation. But these are becoming less important in the world, today. If the powerful few are able to impose their will, it will further confirm that the international order is drifting towards dominance of the few over the many. An order that will be difficult to reverse.
*This is a summary of GSPN Open Consultation Monday, held on 8 June 2026. The full report can be accessed here