It’s high time for a woman

After 70 years and eight male leaders in a row, there’s a growing movement for a woman to head up the United Nations, starting in 2017.

Canada should lend its enthusiastic support to this effort. The timing is right, now that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made clear he intends to re-engage with the UN after years of cool relations under the Harper government.

There are signs that this isn’t just a well-intentioned but doomed movement. In addition to intense lobbying by organizations such as Equality Now and Campaign to Elect a Woman UN Secretary-General, there is considerable activity within the UN itself to have a woman named to the top post.

Last year, Colombian Ambassador Maria Emma Mejia Velez circulated a letter seeking support for a female secretary general. Fifty-three out of 193 member governments supported the initiative. Sadly, though, that included none of the five permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

Still, the movement has two things going for it that could lead to success:

First, a General Assembly resolution states that “due regard shall continue to be given to regional rotation and shall also be given to gender equality.” Since regional rotation has so far trumped gender equality, the time might be right for a course correction.

Second, the more transparent the process, the better chance a woman has of being named to the post. And for the first time, the president of the General Assembly, Denmark’s Mogens Lykketoft, has committed to an “open and transparent process,” asking member states to each present a candidate from their country. Interviews are to start in April.

Of course, the call for candidates doesn’t mean the next UN leader will be chosen democratically. Rules still dictate that the name put forward to the General Assembly for the secretary general’s position must come from the Security Council. Still, the signs that a woman could take over to lead the most important global body have never looked better.

At present the buzz is that it will be a woman from Eastern Europe, with Irina Bokova of Bulgaria and Vesna Pusic of Croatia topping many lists of leading candidates. That region has never had a secretary general.

But there could be a spoiler in that theory, regional rotation or not. The Security Council’s permanent members must agree on a mutually acceptable candidate. Among UN watchers, it’s deemed unlikely that a name from that region that is acceptable to the Russians would also be acceptable to the U.S. That could leave the door open a crack for Canada. Here’s why: There has never been a secretary-general from North America, because it is deemed as part of the “region” that includes Western European countries, which have had their turn. But there’s no reason it couldn’t be considered if candidates from Eastern Europe are ruled out.

One eminently qualified Canadian woman touted by the Campaign to Elect a Woman UN Secretary-General is Louise Arbour. The former Supreme Court judge has already served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Despite all the talk, it’s still a long shot. So far the UN hasn’t even managed to live up to its1995 commitment to have half of all senior positions in its own organization filled by women by the year 2000. Sixteen years after that deadline, only a quarter of senior roles at the UN are held by women.

Still, as Jessica Neuwirth, one of the founders of Equality Now, says: “Maybe if we start from the top we can actually get there.”

Why not? After all, as Trudeau might say, it will be 2017.

Men have been in charge for all 70 years of this august body’s existence