We the peoples

Today is United Nations Day, marking another anniversary of the day the UN Charter beginning with the words “We the peoples” entered into forcé in 1945 (curiously enough, exactly one week after the first Peronist Loyalty Day, the subject of last weekend’s column). As it happens, beyond the institutional occasion this year’s anniversary has more interface with Argentina than most – not only as the international forum of the recently revived Malvinas issue but also because we are entering the final countdown for the election of a new UN secretary-general with a strong Argentine candidate (Rafael Grossi).

Not that Grossi’s UN standing was enhanced by President Javier Milei describing the international institution at its Annual General Assembly this time last month as “a useless organisation which only serves to feed a caste of fatally arrogant parasites, disguised as well-meaning bureaucrats,” but this denigration was a means towards another end, seeking to inject the Malvinas issue by presenting the failure over six decades to enforce Resolution 2065/1965 (urging Argentina and Britain to negotiate their sovereignty dispute peacefully and bilaterally) as a smoking gun for the aforesaid UN impotence.

That failure notwithstanding, the UN Decolonisation Committee has been the most permanent repository beyond these shores of the Malvinas sovereignty drive but that drive boosted by some recent tactical ambiguity over the dispute from United States President Donald Trump has just this week hit a bump in the road thanks to the same man – The Donald abruptly rubbished the Decolonisation Committee for having the impertinence to talk about Puerto Rico, calling for its extinction, and thus seemed to be placing himself in the same boat as Britain. Yet Puerto Rico may not be the only factor in this shift – the sanctions against business participation in the Anglo-Israeli Sea Lion project and other “usurper” offshore oil exploration efforts (penalising investors when the Milei presidency is all about encouraging them) are not avoided by the simple expedient of US companies like Haliburton steering clear because the degree of global financial integration is so advanced that not only US banks but also investment funds and shareholders could involuntarily enter the field of fire.

An entanglement yet to be resolved (hence the government foot-dragging on its National Sovereignty Defence bill) and in any case not directly linked to the United Nations so let us move onto Grossi’s bid to rule the world (nominally at least).

Subjective patriotism aside, his credentials as the man helping to keep this planet in existence during seven tricky years heading the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are extremely solid but the election of the UN secretary-general seems something of a lottery. When the selection process started, Michelle Bachelet seemed a slam dunk for the post – both the right region and gender for the desired alternation, her curriculum vitae was streets ahead of the others with not only two terms as president of an OECD country (Chile) but also two top UN postings as its first Executive Director of UN Women and High Commissioner for Human Rights, exercising both competently. Yet her candidacy gained so little traction that she pulled out of the race last month.

The secretary-general is effectively chosen not by the 193 UN members but on the recommendation of the 15 members of the Security Council with the final General Assembly ratification little more than a formality. Of the 10 non-permanent members currently sitting on the Security Council, six have populations of under 10 million while 100 of the 193 member countries have populations between four and seven digits, thus making for a natural bias in favour of candidates from smaller countries. Meanwhile the five permanent members with veto rights (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States) are all nuclear powers, increasing the likelihood of friction with the IAEA at some point.

This combination of factors might explain why Rebeca Grynspan, little more than the former vice-president of a small country (Costa Rica), is currently the frontrunner, although Grossi is reportedly running her a close second after previous ups and downs in the race. Will he have better luck than Argentina’s previous candidate, former foreign minister Susana Malcorra, who lost out to the outgoing António Guterres? We will just have to wait and see.

Although one of the 51 founding members on the very first day in 1945 (of whom 36 were Euro-American and only 13 Afro-Asian), Argentina has historically shown a patchy commitment to the United Nations, which perhaps does not help Grossi. Argentine presidents have only bothered to show up for 36 September General Assemblies in these past 81 years and when they did, their performances were rarely stellar. UN peacekeeping missions dating back to the 1948 Middle East war leading to the creation of Israel (first armed in the Suez Canal crisis of 1956) were completely shunned for almost half a century by Argentina until the creation of the White Helmets in 1993 by Carlos Menem as part of his drive to bring Argentina back into the world. The alternation between civilian and military governments throughout almost the first half of UN history conspired against a steady long-term foreign policy strategy leading to a sustained UN role, as did the political volatility since with frequent U-turns in Argentine government attitudes towards the outside world. Peronist governments have often considered themselves part of the Third World while non-Peronist governments lend more importance to G20 membership with neither taking a holistic worldview.

Anyway after losing an Argentina spiritual world leader last year in the person of Pope Francis (with his successor’s visit here next month still in the air when this column was written), it would be fantastic if this year could end with the election of an Argentine temporal world leader.