Global Leadership in a Turbulent Time: A Conversation with Professor Abiodun Williams

JOEL ROSENTHAL: Thank you all for coming and sharing this summer evening with us. We do less programming in the summer at the Council, like many places in New York City. This is inspired by one of my favorite quotes from Henry James, the novelist. He said, “The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘summer afternoon,’” so I never want to mess with summer afternoons, but summer evenings are perfect for an event like this.

We meant this to be informal and conversational, and it will be that, but there is a certain formality to this event. Abi just reminded me that this is actually a book launch, we have something to celebrate, and it should be a formal occasion, so we are delighted to have the opportunity to do this in person, in real life, with you, Abi. That is the spirit of our conversation this evening.

As most of you know, Abi has been a great friend of Carnegie Council for many years, maybe more years than we wish to count. Abi, I think I first met you when you were just starting at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, and it was good to reconnect with you last October at Global Ethics Day, when we had a very memorable event right here in this room.

Abi, you were the perfect guest on a very difficult and challenging day. This was just a couple of weeks after October 7, and there was real despair about the tragic events. You helped encourage us and gave us some inspiration on how to deal with that. Thank you belatedly for that.

For those of you meeting Abi for the first time, he is professor of the practice of international diplomacy at The Fletcher School, and as his title indicates he is both a scholar and practitioner, having held leadership positions at the United Nations, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and The Hague Institute for Global Justice. I know we circulated in advance Abi’s Online Exclusive for our journal, Ethics & International Affairs. The title is “Global Justice in a Turbulent World.” I think the title itself suggests the main themes of Abi’s work.

However, the featured element this evening is Abi’s new book, Kofi Annan and Global Leadership at the United Nations, just published by Oxford University Press. In this book Abi highlights the key characteristics of both ethics and leadership, which we can see through the life and achievements of Kofi Annan. Abi had the opportunity to serve closely with Kofi Annan as director of strategic planning in the early 2000s. Reflecting on that experience some years later, we believe there are some lessons that are relevant to today. Congratulations on publication of the book and thank you for agreeing to talk about it with us this evening. Let’s get to it.

As a way to lead off the conversation, I thought maybe since we are at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs we could start by talking a little bit about Kofi Annan’s ethical framework, how he thought about the concept of ethics and how it informed his views.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: First of all, I would like to thank you very much, Joel, for the kind invitation and for the very warm words of welcome and introduction. As you say, we have known each other a very long time, and it was nice to reconnect with you last October. Of course, it is a great pleasure to be back at the Carnegie Council, and I am very much looking forward to the discussion. Thank you to all of you for coming out on a nice hot summer day in New York City.

It is nice to be back actually, particularly to talk about this book, Kofi Annan and Global Leadership at the United Nations, because I lived in New York and worked at the United Nations, and this is the first in-person discussion I have had since the book came out, so it is a great pleasure to be here.

You asked about Kofi Annan’s ethical framework. Annan’s moral convictions were central to his conception of the secretary-generalship and of his responsibilities as secretary-general. The day after his appointment as secretary-general he was asked at a press conference to define his new job. In response to the question from one of the UN correspondents, Annan said that the secretary-general has administrative, political, and diplomatic roles, and, he added, above all a moral voice that should be heard periodically when necessary. Throughout his tenure as secretary-general that moral voice was heard as he used the bully pulpit—as the “communicator-general,” which I what I call him in the book—of the secretary-generalship to use that moral voice to exhort, persuade, inspire, and to make a difference in the world.

Annan’s ethical framework was influenced by his family, his education, and religion. He was born in Ghana in 1938 and was the son of a provincial governor and the grandson of two paramount chiefs, so he grew up with great reverence for public service, and virtue was grounded in service, so public service and duty were two essential elements of his ethical framework.

Annan was also educated at the prestigious boarding school Mfantsipim in Cape Coast in Ghana, which was founded by the Methodist Church in the 19th century, and he said that his education was infused with a moral purpose and that he was taught in a spirit of faith that suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere, so the alleviation of human suffering was also an essential pillar of his ethical framework. I think the commitment to public service, duty, and the alleviation of human suffering were three fundamental pillars of his ethical framework.

JOEL ROSENTHAL: That is great. By the way, this is going to be an open conversation, so I am just telling you now. I am willing to ask the first few questions, but then I am going to stop, but I want you to join in.

You mentioned the Methodist school but also his family’s background. Was there a religious component that you saw later in his life which would be part of his professional world, or was it a private matter for him?

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: Annan was very private about his religious views. It was not something he talked frequently about, although he did, as in that example I gave, which was one of the rare occasions when he talked about the influence of education and the religious dimension to that education. He was actually an Anglican, his family was Anglican, but he went to school in the Methodist school. It was certainly reflected in his policy priorities and his actions as secretary-general.

JOEL ROSENTHAL: That is what I was going to move to. I wanted to underline that great phrase, “Suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere.” Think about how that ethical framework informed his political agenda, how he thought about politics. Maybe you could highlight a couple of main themes whether it is human rights or something. I will let you choose because I know there is a portfolio of political memories that he had.

ABI WILLIAMS: Kofi Annan’s ethical framework undoubtedly shaped his actions and his policy priorities as secretary-general. For example, in terms of human rights, he was very different from his predecessors. He was the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations, the first of course to have come through the ranks of the organization because all his predecessors and in fact his two successors have always come from outside the United Nations, and we can talk about that in the discussion.

He was different from his predecessors because he sought to exercise global leadership on human rights. While propitious geopolitical circumstances provided the context for his efforts, notably the end of the Cold War, his moral values, his moral convictions, impelled him to seize the opportunity.

In terms of human rights he believed that human rights were at the very heart of the UN’s mission, and he saw the promotion and the protection of human rights as a way to advance human dignity. He firmly believed that human rights were universal and inseparable, so he pushed the United Nations to begin to think about human rights in the various parts of its work and to mainstream human rights in the work of the organization.

I should also say that not only did human rights have an intrinsic importance for him, but they were also important in terms of achieving other critical goals. He thought you really could not achieve the alleviation of poverty or deal with the prevention of conflict if you ignored human rights, so it was intrinsic but it also helped you to do certain other critical things.

It was also part of the reason why he championed the establishment of the Human Rights Council in 2006 and replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission because he felt that the framers and founders of the United Nations had set up these two Councils, the Security Council, which has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the Economic and Social Council, but there was a gap in the institutional structure of the United Nations, and he felt that if you had a Human Rights Council it would elevate human rights institutionally to its rightful place in the United Nations. He also tried to get the Security Council to begin to consider human rights in their discussions and decisions.

Another good example would be his global leadership on HIV/AIDS. Annan led the global fight on HIV/AIDS, driven by ethical concerns. When he became secretary-general thousands of people were dying each day around the world. In Africa alone in 1999 5,500 Africans were dying each day from HIV/AIDS, so Annan felt that he had a moral responsibility to highlight the human, economic, and social costs of HIV/AIDS and also to use his moral voice to begin to end what he called the “conspiracy of silence,” which led to great discrimination and stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS.

Because of his global leadership and his advocacy, that led to the establishment of a global fund to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. He then used his convening power to bring together the CEOs of leading pharmaceutical companies, first meeting in Amsterdam. We had a series of meetings to convince the CEOs of the pharmaceutical companies that they had to make antiretroviral drugs affordable in developing countries because the cost of treating it was about $12,000 in 1999 dollars, so these antiretroviral drugs were not affordable. He pushed and persuaded the CEOs to make them at affordable prices, and millions of people are alive today because Kofi Annan provided robust and ethical leadership at a very critical time during the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

A third example would be, of course, his leadership on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He was the architect of the MDGs, which for the first time had eight goals which provided a common framework for the international community embraced by Member States, by donors, by developing countries, the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions. The MDGs he sought were not to merely move attention from market-oriented and macroeconomic phenomena but to turn attention to human aspects of development—poverty, hunger, and environmental protection.

Because of his leadership on the MDGs, the MDGs paved the way for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 17 which we now have today. We would not have had the SDGs without the ethical and robust leadership which Annan demonstrated with the Millennium Development Goals, so I think those three examples, his work on human rights, his effort and leadership on HIV/AIDS, and on MDGs illustrates the ethical foundations of his leadership.

JOEL ROSENTHAL: I am going to open it up in a minute. I will ask one more question. This goes to the leadership question. I apologize in advance for the old joke about secretary or general, is the leader more secretary or more general? I am interested in your reflection on this as we look at the case of Kofi Annan in terms of his leadership style because as you were describing his accomplishments there, which are really quite monumental in these three areas, it would seem to me that his challenge was making a case, raising consciousness, and rallying support. He must have also had enemies, people who did not agree with his agenda, so it was not just trying to identify an issue, rally support, and then move out. What were some of the challenges that were pushing back on his leadership?

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: I think the interesting thing about this unique job of secretary-general is that most people would make the mistake and think the UN secretary-general is a head of state and head of government. The UN secretary-general has no political power in the conventional sense. The secretary-general controls no territory. The secretary-general commands no armies. He or she cannot levy taxes. So you have to use other tools for leadership, and in terms of Annan it was the moral authority of the position which grew over the years, and the moral authority of the position could make a huge difference in trying to move the global agenda.

He was also, as I said earlier, quite skillful in using the bully pulpit. He would choose occasions for talking about particular issues, and he would use the bully pulpit to exhort, change, persuade, and to give others a voice if he felt that this was necessary.

It was very difficult of course not to like Kofi Annan. He had very few enemies because he had certain qualities about him. Kofi Annan was courteous, he was incredibly patient, he was a person of great honesty, integrity, and moral courage, and I think all of the qualities that he had—and tremendous empathy as well—made it easy for heads of state and world leaders to trust him and to get along with him and to bring people around.

When I gave the example of these CEOs and trying to persuade them to make the cost of antiretroviral drugs affordable, he essentially shamed them in a very quiet Annan way, and shame proved more powerful than profit. I would almost also way that finally in terms of bringing people around he had a wonderful sense of humor, and his wonderful wry sense of humor could ease the most difficult policy discussions, and he would use and deploy his sense of humor to disarm even potential adversaries. I think all of those qualities were very effective in being secretary-general, which as I said, is a post which does not have political power in the conventional sense.

GEORGE KAMANDA: Thank you, professor, for taking your time to talk to us.

I feel very honored because I believe we a share similar descent in terms of nationality. I am from Sierra Leone and can reference that but also in terms of the person we are talking about. I believe Kofi Annan inspired my own diplomatic journey. Initially I went to law school and all of that, but I was also interested in diplomacy, and I have read most of his books or statements that are out there. It is important to see all of that come alive in your presentation of him and things like that.

Following on the theme of human rights, my question is: In what ways can Kofi Annan’s advocacy for human rights and sustainable development, because I believe he was really big on those two—you mentioned the MDGs, HIV, and poverty alleviation; those were some of the big-bucket agendas that he rallied around and championed. In what ways can we use that as a guide for today’s leadership, working to promote peace and stability on these global challenges, particularly the humanitarian challenges—think about Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Chad, so many. In what ways can we leverage that and bring it to light? Thank you.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: Thank you very much for the question, George. Human rights is one of the most controversial issues in international diplomacy and a bed of nails for secretaries-general and High Commissioners of Human Rights.

Annan, as I said, was convinced about the centrality of human rights in terms of the UN’s work. He saw the cardinal mission of the United Nations—peace and security, development, and human rights—as inextricably linked; you could not have peace and security without development, you could not have development without peace and security, and you would not have either without human rights. In his first wave of reforms he made human rights a crosscutting issue within the organization. So the High Commissioner for Human Rights was made a member of each of the executive committees that he set up in the first wave of reforms.

Interestingly I think also he saw a connection between human rights and democracy because he felt that democracy with all its flaws and imperfections was also very critical and useful in trying to promote human rights. He was too much of a realist to embrace one ideal form of democracy, but he felt that would help to promote human rights, which is why he pushed for the establishment of the UN Democracy Fund. He also saw the prevention of armed conflict as critical for the pursuance of human rights because human rights are always greatly threatened or abandoned when you have conflict, so I think putting emphasis on the prevention and the alleviation of conflict would also help the promotion of human rights.

JOEL ROSENTHAL: I am going to jump in here again. One of the things we discussed prior that would be important for this conversation was how he dealt with failures. Human rights is a great aspiration, but you are almost destined to come up short. I am sure many of us are feeling that in our work today. It seems that we are sort of moving against the wind in some ways. I am sure there were various moments of acknowledged failure but also ongoing failures as well. I am thinking primarily in responsibility to protect (R2P) and that area, this idea that conflicts grind on, and we see some notable failures. Any great leader has to figure out how to deal with that. I am curious what came out in the book in that regard.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: Thanks for the question. When Kofi Annan was undersecretary-general he was undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations for a few years before he became secretary-general, and while he was undersecretary for peacekeeping operations he saw that the international community failed to respond to the genocide in Rwanda or to Srebrenica in the former Yugoslavia, and then while he was secretary-general he saw what happened in Kosovo, which cast a shadow on the United Nations because action was taken by the NATO to stop Milošević carrying out atrocities in Kosovo but it did not go through the Security Council because the action would have been faced with inevitable vetoes from at least two of the Permanent Members (P5).

Those experiences had an impact on him as secretary-general. Good leaders, all leaders, make mistakes. What Kofi did and how he responded—first you have an acknowledgment of what has happened, you apologize for what has happened, and then you try to do something about what has happened, and that is how he responded. That is the genesis of the responsibility to protect because he then made a series of speeches both outside the United Nations and at the opening of the General Assembly, usually in September, very hard-hitting speeches, where he challenged the Member States and the international community, particularly the guardians of sovereignty, that they had to find a way to deal with mass atrocities.

He was a quintessential non-entrepreneur when he was challenging the world that we have to find a way to deal with mass atrocities, and he firmly believed that sovereignty should not be a shield behind which you should hide, a shield for mass atrocities, and that sovereignty exists to protect people and cannot be used as a justification for committing mass atrocities. That is what led, of course, to the responsibility to protect, which he called his most precious achievement.

JAMES KETTERER: You touched on one of the things I was going to ask about, but I will see if you can expand on it. I was thinking about Kosovo and circumvention of the Security Council by NATO. It was making me think more broadly that every secretary-general has a real challenge particularly in managing the relationship with Washington, which is a place that does command armies, does levy taxes, and all of that.

Kosovo was one of those moments where the relationship I think was really strained, and he experienced that as an undersecretary, but then going forward there were many others, including in responsibility to protect. I wonder what lessons you could take away from his time in office, even coming up through the ranks, in managing that difficult relationship.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: The relationship, of course, between a secretary-general and any secretary-general with Washington and the United States, which is a Permanent Member of the Security Council, a superpower, contributes the greatest amount to the UN budget, and of course the United Nations headquarters is right here in this city, is one which is fraught with ideological and partisan fervor. Kofi Annan was secretary-general at the unipolar moment when the United States dominated world affairs. It was of necessity that at a time of American hegemony he had to have a working relationship with Washington while not alienating the other Members of the United Nations.

He also had when he became secretary-general the task of restoring relations between the UN Secretariat and Washington, which had been very difficult during the previous five years and also to begin to persuade the United States to pay its huge arrears, which was $1.3 billion, when he became secretary-general and the United Nations was close to bankruptcy. Kofi Annan used his exceptional diplomatic talents to navigate this very difficult political environment and ultimately got the United States to pay its arrears.

His task was to make the argument as to why U.S. leadership was critical for the United Nations but also why an effective United Nations was in America’s national interest. Managing that relationship I think highlights one of the critical tasks of a secretary-general because it is like a tightrope walk, and being secretary-general demands remarkable diplomatic skill and acuity, which Annan had in spades.

He had also, of course, had his undergraduate training in the United States at Macalester College. He also studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the Sloan School of Management, so he understood the United States and had been here as a student, but he navigated that relationship quite successfully.

During the Iraq War it became very difficult, particularly because he tried to persuade the George W. Bush administration unsuccessfully not to carry out an invasion of Iraq without Security Council authorization, without legal justification, and without hard evidence. That was when the relationship became very difficult, but before that he navigated it very skillfully and quite effectively and had very good and harmonious relations with Washington.

EDDIE MANDHRY: First of all, thank you so much for really illuminating reflections on Kofi Annan and leadership. He is a big hero to many of us Africans, and I think his sense of humor was one that would light up any room. He would often say that SG stood for “scapegoat” and that was the role he always had to play.

My question is around the intersection between the personal and professional. You mentioned how he was careful to keep his religion out of his professional life in many instances, but there was a moment when he was under intense scrutiny and investigation because of the Oil-for-Food scandal in the 2000s and the allegation that there was some corruption involved and that his son Kojo Annan was implicated in some way, but he was cleared by the Volcker report.

I am just curious in terms of reflecting on his legacy, virtue, morality, and ethics in that instance where the personal starts to veer into your professional world in a certain way, in some sense or form destabilizing what you have worked so hard to build and project. It somehow mirrors in the current moment the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden situation to some degree, but I am just curious about your reflections on that and how that played out.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: Thank you. It was a very difficult time for him personally because as I said of his opposition to the Iraq War, and of course when he called it illegal he then had to pay the price for speaking uncomfortable and inconvenient truths. As the invasion got mired in difficulty, you had the investigation, so he immediately of course got Paul Volcker, a very creditable former chair of the Federal Reserve, who carried out the investigation, and he was cleared. One of his qualities was that he was a person of great honesty and integrity, but it was a very difficult time. In terms of what happened in Iraq, the civil war which took place, the enormous loss of life to American service people, and regional instability, I think Kofi Annan has a reasonable claim to prescience.

He was sustained I think by his inner strengths which he had. People always say, “How was it working with Kofi Annan?”

I say, “I never heard him raise his voice.” He was not a leader who would throw inanimate objects or scream. In fact the note takers always found it sometimes very difficult to hear because he was always very soft when he spoke.

He was unflappable, even under an extraordinary amount of stress. He was always very unflappable, and he treated human beings in exactly the same way regardless of whether you were head of state, head of government, or the most junior person in the United Nations. He treated everybody exactly the same way. I think he epitomized the kinds of qualities that we would like to see in our leaders—integrity, unflappability, courtesy, all of those qualities which I think served him well as secretary-general.

JOEL ROSENTHAL: Those qualities do not seem to have a lot of currency today, so that is very interesting.

DAVID PASSARELLI: Thank you so much, Abi. There are many questions I would like to put to you and there are lots of parallels between Kofi’s time and the challenges facing the United Nations and the current secretary-general. I knew people were going to ask you about Kofi, so I want to ask you about the current moment.

So much of what you said and the examples you gave of how Kofi acted ethically and the evidence for it, you pointed to governance innovation, the creation of the global fund, and his work on human rights. This secretary-general is trying to do the same at the moment. With his Summit of the Future and Our Common Agenda he is trying to innovate a great deal in this struggle.

As you pointed out, context matters, and Kofi operated in a unique context at a unique time. This secretary-general is operating in a very difficult time in a very difficult context, so I want to ask you, when you think about “leadership at the United Nations,” the title of your book, how do we think about and how do we evaluate ethical leadership of a secretary-general in this context? How do we factor in the context when we are going to look back on Guterres’ term as secretary-general? What metrics can we use to evaluate whether he was an ethical leader in a complicated geopolitical time?

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: That is the book you will have to write. Of course, it is not yet over. The current secretary-general has got two, two-and-a-half years left. As you know, a week is a long time in politics and a long time in international diplomacy, so there is a lot left.

But let me say this. I think looking at Kofi Annan and how to try to evaluate him, I think one of the things when you look at the role of a secretary-general and certainly Kofi Annan in terms of evaluating him and his tenure it could be the legacy that he has left within the United Nations itself.

Kofi was unusual in that he was the first and so far the only secretary-general who went through the ranks of the UN system. He joined the United Nations at 24, when he found his vocation as a junior budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva, and he said in his very first speech as secretary-general to the staff: “Working for the United Nations is not a job. It is a calling.” It was not a rhetorical flourish. It was a deeply held credo for Kofi Annan, and he spent his entire working life with the United Nations, so working for the United Nations was a calling, and the position of secretary-general deepened that commitment to the idea of self-reorganization.

In terms of his legacy I think he would be evaluated by looking at the changes that he brought about, enduring changes, to make the United Nations work more effectively. For example, the peace-building architecture which the United Nations now has.

When he became secretary-general there was this gaping hole in the UN system, and you could see empirically that countries which had been in war usually would revert to conflict after about five years or so because a country which has had conflict before is always at a greater risk, so because of his leadership he established a peace-building architecture comprising the Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Support Office, and the Peacebuilding Fund, which he established as secretary-general. It was not easy at all to do. As you know, sometimes these things look easy in retrospect. They are not easy.

He also, I think I mentioned earlier, established the Democracy Fund because he understood that while democracy should be homegrown it can benefit from international assistance, and that is still there. I also mentioned the Human Rights Council.

The other I think just example that I would give is that he was the first secretary-general who recognized and had the courage to say, “I need a deputy secretary-general.” None of his predecessors had accomplished this. We accept this now; it is a norm, but it was Kofi Annan who said we need a deputy secretary-general and persuaded the General Assembly to approve the post of the deputy secretary-general because I think he had maybe 30 or 40 people reporting directly to him and a secretary-general has these roles—political, diplomatic, administrative—so we needed somebody to help, and that is still there.

In governments it is the norm that you have a cabinet. The United Nations never had a cabinet before Kofi Annan, and it was he who established the senior management group, which brought the senior officials around the table on a weekly basis and those who were not in the cabinet would be brought in if issues under their bailiwick were being formed. I think you would evaluate a secretary-general by looking in terms of the organization, how they improved the organization, and the enduring changes they made.

Another way of course in terms of the assessment would look at how they dealt with the challenges they faced, and we have discussed already some of the challenges—the Millennium Development Goals and HIV/AIDS—that he dealt with. He also was very active on conflict prevention. He articulated what conflict prevention can and should mean in practice.

One of the examples was that because of his patient mediation over a number of years he actually was able to prevent conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon over the Bakassi Peninsula, which was a contested area. It did not make the headlines, but this could have brought Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, the original hegemon, into a war with Cameroon.

This I think is an example of leadership because global leadership is not always about dealing with headline-grabbing disputes. It could recognize the vast dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula, which did not make the headlines, needed engagement by a secretary-general, so looking at the issues and looking at the enduring changes are a thoughtful way to evaluate the role of the secretary-general.

GIOVANNI BASSU: Wearing my UNHCR hat I have to recall that Kofi started as a human resources officer in UNHCR. I wonder how much that humanitarian perspective kept with him as secretary-general, and what I mean by humanitarian perspective is the imperative of saving lives, maybe I would say over and above the imperative of the normative framework. A certain balancing act is always needed to make sure that you prioritize the saving and alleviating of suffering of people while to the extent possible maintaining the priority of the normative framework.

The other point I wanted to make was a little bit picking up on the previous comment. I think Kofi used the bully pulpit super-effectively. I think he probably was inspired to a great degree by Dag Hammarskjöld, who in a way used that as well, but I think the times were hugely different from where they are now. I think this was post-fall of the Berlin Wall. I think there was a real faith in multilateralism and what it could do, and the United Nations had a certain image that I think now it is struggling, especially post-Libya—since we talked about Kosovo, I think we can talk about Libya—where I think the responsibility to protect met its end and now we are still paying off the debt of that.

Now the current secretary-general finds himself with a certain gridlock amongst Member States and a certain lack of faith maybe in what multilateralism can do, so we see also, and I think we have to give all credit to the secretary-general on the way he is trying to push for some kind of resolution to what is happening in Gaza, but the bully pulpit can only get you so far in the current context.

TINATIN JAPARIDZE: Thank you so much for your remarks. I am very much looking forward to reading the book.

We have talked about a myriad of conflicts, and there was another one in February 2022, of course, Ukraine, and that war is still unfortunately ongoing. I wanted to ask a forward-gazing question about the role of the secretary-general when it comes to dealing with the atrocities that are conducted by a P5 Member State that on the one hand is a P5 Member State and there is nothing one can do. This is a Security Council that has been talking about reform, but we have not really seen any major reform that would rethink how we think about P5 and perhaps even growing that number in terms of the Permanent Membership.

What can the secretary-general do in this day and age? Obviously the current secretary-general has been dealt very difficult and complicated cards and he is doing the very best he can on the one hand. On the other hand, some could argue, including those who are directly involved in the conflict on the other side, such as the Ukrainians, that perhaps not enough is being done because Russia has that P5 veto power, and therefore we are going around in circles a little bit when we talk about the resolutions, other resolutions not pertaining to Ukraine that get vetoed by Russia, China, etc.

How do you envision a 21st-century secretary-general when we are talking about not just conflicts but outright wars that are at the brink of turning into something much bigger because the escalation risk is only growing, and this is not an isolated conflict? Neither of course is the Middle East conflict that could spill over because the risks are rising.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: Two very easy questions. Where is Kofi Annan when you need him?

The first one is an excellent question on António. As I said at the outset the alleviation of human suffering was a key element of Kofi Annan’s framework, and this I think really drove him, whether in terms of Millennium Development Goals, dealing with HIV/AIDS, or prevention of conflict. He was trying to alleviate human suffering and to make the world a more peaceful and a more just place for people. That stayed with him from the very beginning, from his early days with the World Health Organization, with UNHCR, as undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, and as secretary-general. I think that was very much a part of his work and drove him ethically.

In terms of the current situation and the difficulties the Security Council, the P5, and the veto are the reality of the system which we have. Kofi Annan put a huge primacy on conflict prevention. In fact, he tried to move the United Nations from what he called a “culture of reaction” to a “culture of prevention,” and he articulated what this should and can mean in practice. It is much better to deal with conflicts before they erupt and to work behind the scenes before conflicts actually erupt, because once they have erupted they are very, very difficult to solve.

Looking at his tenure and the emphasis on conflict prevention if it fails, then he was a great believer of forcing diplomacy and the power of diplomacy and using the good offices of the secretary-general. There were very difficult conflicts in Afghanistan, for example, that he dealt with and we have talked about Iraq. He used his good offices. It was not very easy to persuade Indonesia, very difficult to have a consultation and a plebiscite on East Timor and to persuade Indonesia to accept international peacekeepers led by the Australians into East Timor and to shepherd the independence of East Timor, so using your good offices as secretary-general robustly and then trying to bring about key players who could help to find a solution because it takes creativity, it takes good offices, it takes hard work, and to identify of course the common interest and build upon it.

Let me just say this at the end, that great powers—and I think that was one of his strengths—Kofi Annan had for a number of years gotten the trust and confidence of the P5 and because he had gotten the trust and confidence of the P5 he had leeway to do certain things that his predecessors and perhaps his successors were unable to do. If the P5 have trust and confidence in a secretary-general, your ability, your impartiality, your capacity to work with them, then it makes a huge difference. Trust is the oil that lubricates international relationships. It takes time to develop, it is intensely personal, and Kofi Annan was able to develop that trust with the P5.

JOEL ROSENTHAL: Thank you, Abi. You all know the old saying in writing, “Show, don’t tell.” The example of Kofi Annan’s leadership at a time when we are all looking for what those qualities are and what they should be is a great example in and of itself. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing this time with us.

We can continue this conversation informally upstairs on the terrace. There is food and drink, so I will formally adjourn this session but encourage you all to join us upstairs to continue. Abi, thank you very much.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS: Thank you very much.