Countries have seized on a record gathering of world leaders to debate how to choose the next leader of the United Nations — and whether that person should be a woman. Momentum has been growing for the first female U.N. chief after eight men have served.
Britain's U.N. deputy ambassador Peter Wilson on Saturday repeated his government's belief that it's time for a woman, but he pushed back against a proposal that the secretary-general serve a single, longer term. By tradition the U.N. chief serves up to two five-year terms.
"A single term can also mean you're a lame duck," Wilson said.
The U.N. Security Council's five permanent members essentially choose the U.N. chief behind closed doors. Other member states want more of a say.
Russia argues that it's Eastern Europe's turn to provide a secretary-general, but former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, the deputy chair of a group of global leaders called The Elders, said that "we cannot afford to limit our search to one single region of the world."
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