The John W. Holmes Lecture

Reinvigorating the International Civil Service

Bibliographic Data

ID12430477
AuthorsThomas G Wei (0000-0002-5258-4947, corresponding author), Thomas G Weiss
Year2010
Volume16
Issue1
Pages39-57
Publication date2010-12-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Governance A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1075-2846 • E-ISSN: 1942-6720
PublisherLynne Rienner Publishers (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1163/19426720-01601004
OpenAlexW1873401404
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited4

PEOPLE MATTER IS A CENTRAL CONCLUSION FROM THE UNITED NATIONS Intellectual History Project and penultimate sentence of first of seventeen published volumes. (1) Yet critical contributions by individuals who work at world organization are usually overlooked or downplayed by analysts who stress politics of 192 member states and supposedly ironclad constraints placed by them on international secretariats. However, I have devoted considerable professional energy to international administration, both as an analyst and as a civil servant. (2) My proposition is straightforward: United Nations should rediscover idealistic roots of international civil service, make room for creative idea-mongers, and mark out career development paths for a twenty-first century secretariat with greater turnover and younger and more mobile staff. This essay explores origins of concept, problems, logic of reform, and specific improvements. Examples come from UN's three main areas of activity--peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development. (3) Overwhelming Bureaucracy and Underwhelming Leadership: The If conceptual UN is unitary, real organization consists of three linked pieces. The consists of heads of secretariats and staff members who are paid from assessed and voluntary budgets. Inis Claude long ago distinguished it from arena for state decisionmaking, First of member states. The Third of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), experts, commissions, and academics is a more recent addition to analytical perspectives that first appeared in these pages. (4) The possibility of independently recruited professionals with allegiance to welfare of planet, not to home countries, remains a lofty but contested objective. During World War II, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace sponsored conferences to learn from great experiment of League of Nations (5). One essential item of its legacy, international civil service, was purposefully included as UN Charter Article 101, calling for securing highest standards of efficiency, competence, and (6) The Second UN's most visible champion was Dag Hammarskjold, whose speech at Oxford in May 1961, shortly before his calamitous death, spelled out importance of an autonomous and first-rate staff. He asserted that any erosion or abandonment of the international civil service ... might, if accepted by Member nations, well prove to be Munich of international cooperation. (7) His clarion call did not ignore reality that international civil service exists to carry out decisions by member states. But Hammarskjold fervently believed that UN officials could and should pledge allegiance to a larger collective good symbolized by organization's light-blue-covered laissez-passer rather than narrowly perceived national interests of countries that issue national passports in different colors. Setting aside senior UN positions for officials approved by home countries belies that integrity. Governments seek to ensure that interests are defended inside secretariats, and many have even relied on officials for intelligence. From outset, for example, Security Council's five permanent members have reserved right to nominate (essentially select) nationals to fill key posts in secretary-general's cabinet. The influx in 1950s and 1960s of former colonies as new member states led them to clamor for their quota or fair share of patronage opportunities, following bad example set by major powers and other member states. The result was downplaying competence and exaggerating national origins as main criterion for recruitment and promotion. Over years, efforts to improve gender balance have resulted in other types of claims, as has age profile of secretariats

Bureaucracy · Civil society · Human rights · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Tribunal · European Union Policy and Governance · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Development and Aid · Law · Public Administration

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