A Future UN:
Leadership and Responsibilities

The UN system is concerned with virtually all fields of human activity and need.

Many NGOs see the UN becoming the public service sector of a world community that does not yet exist but that they wish to see developed.

Will governments be prepared to pay more serious attention to what 'We the Peoples', who open the Charter, actually want the United Nations to be, and therefore to what they expect of the Secretary-General? A wise and careful but charismatic, fearless and articulate champion of peace, justice, law, human rights, and reason would certainly attract widespread popular support in today's confused and violent world. Such a person would not necessarily make all governments happy, but those ardently professing devotion to democracy and the will of the peoples of the world actually wish to see in the Secretary-General's post.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES:

• the maintenance of early warning systems on potential conflicts, and the conduct of preventive diplomacy;
• the peaceful settlement of disputes; peace-making (in the UN sense of the term) and peace-making;
• disarmament, arms regulation and reduction of the flow of arms;
• the promotion of an effective system of common and collective security;
• the promotion of a more equitable and purposeful management of the world economy;
• proposals for dealing with the world's financial and monetary problems including the debt problem (the new power of the Funds vs Banks, and the responsibility and accountability of their liquidity requirements)
• the mobilization of resources and the formulation of strategies to overcome mass poverty and marginalization;
• leadership in safeguarding the environment and in the management of the global commons;
• the management and mitigation of urgent and major problems, including those posed by refugees and large scale migrations, natural disasters, and other human emergencies, AIDS and other diseases, and the international drug problem;
• coordination and improvement of the capacity of the UN system for development cooperation;
• development of and the respect for international law in its many new economic, environmental and social, as well as its traditional spheres;
• promotion of respect for all human rights and their further codification, with particular attention to eliminating discrimination based on gender;
• strengthening understanding of the value of cultural diversity and efforts to conserve it;
• the furtherance of basic and innovative research to support the above work, including comprehensive global banks and multidisciplinary analyses of global trends;
• stimulating participation in UN system of all components of civil society; citizens and their organizations, the business sector, research and academic institutions, and the media.

  A World In Need Of Leadership: Tomorrows United Nations - A Fresh Appraisal by Brian Urquhart and Erskine Childers (1996)

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