Secretary-General of the United Nations
Emblem of the United Nations
Flag of the United Nations
Incumbent António Guterres since 1 January 2017 (2017-01-01)
United Nations Secretariat
Style	His Excellency
Member of	Secretariat General Assembly
Residence	United Nations Headquarters
Seat	New York City, New York, United States
Nominator	Security Council
Appointer	General Assembly
Term length	five years, renewable (traditionally limited to two terms)
Constituting instrument	United Nations Charter
Inaugural holder	Gladwyn Jebb as acting Secretary-General (24 October 1945) Trygve Lie as first Secretary-General (2 February 1946)
Formation	24. October 1945
Deputy	Deputy Secretary-General
Website	un.org/sg

The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UNSG or just SG) is the head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General serves as the chief administrative officer of the United Nations. The role of the United Nations Secretariat, and of the Secretary-General in particular, is laid out by Chapter XV (Articles 97 to 101) of the United Nations Charter.

As of 2018, the Secretary-General is António Guterres, appointed by the General Assembly on 13 October 2016.

Role[edit]

The Secretary-General was envisioned by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a "world moderator", but the vague definition provided by the United Nations Charter left much room for interpretation. The Secretary-General is the "chief administrative officer" of the UN (Article 97) "in all meetings of the General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council, and shall perform other functions as are entrusted to him by these organs" (Article 98). They are also responsible for making an annual report to the General Assembly. They may notify the Security Council on matters which "in their opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security".

Other than these few guidelines, little else is dictated by the Charter. Interpretation of the Charter has varied between Secretaries-General, with some being much more active than others.^{[citation needed]} The Secretary-General, along with the Secretariat, is given the prerogative to exhibit no allegiance to any state but to only the United Nations organization; decisions must be made without regard to the state of origin.^{[citation needed]}

The Secretary-General is highly dependent upon the support of the member states of the UN. Although the Secretary-General may place any item on the provisional agenda of the Security Council, much of their mediation work takes place behind the scenes.^[1]

In the early 1960s, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev led an effort to abolish the Secretary-General position. The numerical superiority of the Western powers combined with the one state, one vote system meant that the Secretary-General would come from one of them, and would potentially be sympathetic towards the West. Khrushchev proposed to replace the Secretary-General with a three-person directorate (a "troika"): one member from the West, one from the Eastern Bloc, and one from the Non-Aligned powers. This idea failed because the neutral powers failed to back the Soviet proposal.^[2][3]

Selection and term of office[edit]

The Secretariat Building is a 154 m (505 ft) tall skyscraper and the centerpiece of the Headquarters of the United Nations

The Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. As the recommendation must come from the Security Council, any of the five permanent members of the Council can veto a nomination. Most Secretaries-General are compromise candidates from middle powers and have little prior fame.

Unofficial qualifications for the job have been set by precedent in previous selections. The appointee may not be a citizen of any of the Security Council's five permanent members.^[4] The General Assembly resolution 51/241 in 1997 stated that in the appointment of "the best candidate", due regard should be given to regional (continental) rotation of the appointee's national origin and to gender equality,^[5]:5 although no woman has yet served as Secretary-General.

The length of the term is discretionary, but all Secretaries-General since 1971 have been appointed to five-year terms. Every Secretary-General since 1961 has been re-selected for a second term, with the exception of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was vetoed by the United States in the 1996 selection. There is a term limit of two full terms, established when China cast a record 16 vetoes against Kurt Waldheim's third term in the 1981 selection. No Secretary-General since 1981 has attempted to secure a third term.

The selection process is opaque and is often compared to a papal conclave.^[6][7] Since 1981, the Security Council has voted in secret in a series of straw polls. The Security Council then submits the winning candidate to the General Assembly for ratification. No candidate has ever been rejected by the General Assembly.^{[citation needed]} In 2016, the General Assembly and the Security Council sought nominations and conducted public debates for the first time. However, the Security Council voted in private and followed the same process as previous selections, leading the President of the General Assembly to complain that it "does not live up to the expectations of the membership and the new standard of openness and transparency".^[8]

Residence[edit]

The official residence of the Secretary-General is a townhouse at 3 Sutton Place, Manhattan, in New York City, United States. The townhouse was built for Anne Morgan in 1921, and donated to the United Nations in 1972.^[9]

List of Secretaries-General[edit]

№	Portrait	Secretary-General (Born–Died)	Dates in office	Country of origin	UN Regional Group	Reason of withdrawal	Ref.
–		Gladwyn Jebb (1900–1996)	24 October 1945 – 1 February 1946	United Kingdom	Western European & Others	Served as Acting Secretary-General until Lie's election.	[10]
		After World War II, he served as Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations in August 1945, being appointed Acting United Nations Secretary-General from October 1945 to February 1946 until the appointment of the first Secretary-General, Trygve Lie.
1		Trygve Lie (1896–1968)	2 February 1946 – 10 November 1952	Norway	Western European & Others	Resigned.	[11]
		Lie, a foreign minister and former labour leader, was recommended by the Soviet Union to fill the post. After the UN involvement in the Korean War, the Soviet Union vetoed Lie's reappointment in 1951. The United States circumvented the Soviet Union's veto and recommended reappointment directly to the General Assembly. Lie was reappointed by a vote of 46 to 5, with eight abstentions. The Soviet Union remained hostile to Lie, and he resigned in 1952.[12]
2		Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961)	10 April 1953 – 18 September 1961	Sweden	Western European & Others	Died in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), while on a peacekeeping mission to the Congo.	[13]
		After a series of candidates were vetoed, Hammarskjöld emerged as an option that was acceptable to the Security Council. He was re-elected unanimously to a second term in 1957. The Soviet Union was angered by Hammarskjöld's leadership of the UN during the Congo Crisis, and suggested that the position of Secretary-General be replaced by a troika, or three-man executive. Facing great opposition from the Western nations, the Soviet Union gave up on its suggestion. Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in 1961.[12] U.S. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century".[14]
3		U Thant (1909–1974)	30 November 1961 – 31 December 1971	Burma	Asia-Pacific	Declined to stand for a third election.	[15]
		In the process of replacing Hammarskjöld, the developing world insisted on a non-European and non-American Secretary-General. U Thant was nominated. However, due to opposition from the French (Thant had chaired a committee on Algerian independence) and the Arabs (Burma supported Israel), Thant was only appointed for the remainder of Hammarskjöld's term. He was the first Asian Secretary-General. The following year, on 30 November, Thant was unanimously re-elected to a full term ending on 3 November 1966. He was re-elected on 2 December 1966, finally for a full 5-year term, ending on 31 December 1971. Thant did not seek a third election.[12]
4		Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007)	1 January 1972 – 31 December 1981	Austria	Western European & Others	China vetoed his third term.	[16]
		Waldheim launched a discreet but effective campaign to become the Secretary-General. Despite initial vetoes from China and the United Kingdom, in the third round, Waldheim was selected to become the new Secretary-General. In 1976, China initially blocked Waldheim's re-election, but it relented on the second ballot. In 1981, Waldheim's re-election for a third term was blocked by China, which vetoed his selection through 15 rounds. From 1986 to 1992, Waldheim served as President of Austria, making him the first former Secretary-General to rise to the position of head of state.[17] In 1985, it was revealed that a post–World War II UN War Crimes Commission had labeled Waldheim as a suspected war criminal – based on his involvement with the army of Nazi Germany. The files had been stored in the UN archive.[12]
5		Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (born 1920)	1 January 1982 – 31 December 1991	Peru	Latin American & Caribbean	Did not stand for a third term.	[18]
		Pérez de Cuéllar was selected after a five-week deadlock between the re-election of Waldheim and China's candidate, Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania. Pérez de Cuéllar, a Peruvian diplomat who a decade earlier had served as President of the UN Security Council during his time as Peruvian Ambassador to the UN, was a compromise candidate, and became the first and thus far only Secretary-General from the Americas. He was re-elected unanimously in 1986.[12]
6		Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922–2016)	1 January 1992 – 31 December 1996	Egypt	African	The United States vetoed his second term.	[19]
		The 102-member Non-Aligned Movement insisted that the next Secretary-General come from Africa. With a majority in the General Assembly and the support of China, the Non-Aligned Movement had the votes necessary to block any unfavourable candidate. The Security Council conducted five anonymous straw polls—a first for the council—and Boutros-Ghali emerged with 11 votes on the fifth round. In 1996, the United States vetoed the re-appointment of Boutros-Ghali, claiming he had failed in implementing necessary reforms to the UN.[12]
7		Kofi Annan (1938–2018)	1 January 1997 – 31 December 2006	Ghana	African	Retired after two full terms.	[20]
		On 13 December 1996, the Security Council recommended Annan.[21][22] He was confirmed four days later by the vote of the General Assembly.[23] He started his second term as Secretary-General on 1 January 2002.
8		Ban Ki-moon (born 1944)	1 January 2007 – 31 December 2016	South Korea	Asia-Pacific	Retired after two full terms.	[24]
		Ban became the first East Asian to be selected as the Secretary-General and the second Asian overall after U Thant. He was unanimously elected to a second term by the General Assembly on 21 June 2011. His second term began on 1 January 2012.[25] Prior to his selection, he was the Foreign Minister of South Korea from January 2004 to November 2006.
9		António Guterres (born 1949)	1 January 2017 – present	Portugal	Western European & Others
		Guterres is the first former head of government to become Secretary-General, and the first Secretary-General born after the establishment of the United Nations. He was Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002. He has also been President of Socialist International (1999–2005) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2005–2015).

A map showing which nations have had a national serving as Secretary-General of the United Nations

Jebb

Lie

Hammarskjöld

Thant

Waldheim

Pérez de Cuéllar

Boutros-Ghali

Annan

Ban

Guterres

Birthplaces of Secretaries-General of the United Nations

Statistics[edit]

#	Secretary-General	Date of birth	Age at ascension (first term)	Time in office (total)	Age at retirement (last term)	Date of death	Longevity
acting	Jebb, Gladwyn Gladwyn Jebb	19000425April 25, 1900(April 5, 1900)	45 18245 years, 182 days	00 101101 days	45 28345 years, 283 days	19961024October 24, 1996	7004352460000000000♠35,24696 years, 182 days
1	Lie, Trygve Trygve Lie	18960716July 16, 1896(July 16, 1896)	49 20149 years, 201 days	06 2826 years, 282 days	56 11756 years, 117 days	19681230December 30, 1968	7004264640000000000♠26,46472 years, 167 days
2	Hammarskjöld, Dag Dag Hammarskjöld	19050729July 29, 1905(July 29, 1905)	47 25547 years, 255 days	08 1618 years, 161 days	56 05156 years, 51 days	19610918September 18, 1961	7004205050000000000♠20,50556 years, 51 days
3	Thant, U U Thant	19090122January 22, 1909(January 22, 1909)	52 31252 years, 312 days	10 03110 years, 31 days	62 34362 years, 343 days	19741125November 25, 1974	7004240480000000000♠24,04865 years, 307 days
4	Waldheim, Kurt Kurt Waldheim	19181221December 21, 1918(December 21, 1918)	53 01153 years, 11 days	09 3649 years, 364 days	63 01063 years, 10 days	20070614June 14, 2007	7004323170000000000♠32,31788 years, 175 days
5	Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier Javier Pérez de Cuéllar	19200119January 19, 1920(January 19, 1920)	61 34761 years, 347 days	09 3649 years, 364 days	71 34671 years, 346 days	Living	7004360310000000000♠36,0317004360310000000000♠98 years, 236 days (Living)
6	Boutros-Ghali, Boutros Boutros Boutros-Ghali	19221114November 14, 1922(November 14, 1922)	69 04869 years, 48 days	04 3644 years, 364 days	74 04774 years, 47 days	20160216February 16, 2016	7004340620000000000♠34,06293 years, 94 days
7	Annan, Kofi Kofi Annan	19380408April 8, 1938(April 8, 1938)	58 26858 years, 268 days	09 3649 years, 364 days	68 26768 years, 267 days	68 267August 18, 2018	7004293520000000000♠29,35280 years, 132 days
8	Ki-moon, Ban Ban Ki-moon	19440613June 13, 1944(June 13, 1944)	62 20262 years, 202 days	09 3649 years, 364 days	72 20172 years, 201 days	Living	7004271190000000000♠27,1197004271190000000000♠74 years, 91 days (Living)
9	Guterres, António António Guterres	19490430April 30, 1949(April 30, 1949)	67 years, 246 days	7002619000000000000♠1 year, 254 days (Ongoing)	Incumbent	Living	7004253370000000000♠25,3377004253370000000000♠69 years, 135 days (Living)

By regional group[edit]

Lifespan timeline[edit]

This is a graphical lifespan timeline of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations. They are listed in order of office.