Rights monitors question UAE diplomat bid for next UN boss

Human rights monitors criticised senior UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh's candidacy to be the next UN chief on Tuesday, citing her role in championing the country's foreign policy and denying the UAE's role in fuelling the conflict in Sudan.

Pushback against the prominent Middle Eastern candidate has gathered steam since her late entry last week. Her bid upended the gridlocked race to replace UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as he finishes his second five-year term this year.

Despite months of campaigning by several senior UN figures and former country leaders, the competition has struggled to produce a consensus choice among the Security Council's most powerful nations.

Sudan's war, which erupted in April 2023 following a power struggle between the military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has displaced more than 14 million people and created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

"She has been asked about the UAE's role in arming and supporting the RSF, and she just blatantly denies it without regard to the facts, that is not what we need as UN Secretary-General," Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, told a webinar organised by online campaigns group Avaaz.

Last month, a UN fact-finding mission said foreign weapons, military technology, fighters and logistical networks, including individuals and entities in the United Arab Emirates, among others, are helping sustain Sudan's conflict.

"This is the opposite of the kind of moral standing of the human rights leadership that we want from a UN Secretary-General," Roth told the webinar titled "Call To Stop UAE Minister's Bid for UN Top Job Amid Sudan Genocide".

The webinar also featured Sudanese experts, as well as a survivor of the El Fasher massacre, on their concerns about Nusseibeh's candidacy and its implications for the UN's commitment to protect civilians, according to the organisers.

"Electing (the UAE's) senior diplomat as Secretary-General would hand leadership of (United Nations) institutions to that government's chief defender, at the very moment Sudanese civilians most need the UN to hold powerful states accountable," said Husam Mahjoub, a Sudanese advocate and founder of independent media Sudan Bukra TV.

Asked about Sudan during the dialogue with the General Assembly on Tuesday, Nusseibeh said: "If I were to become secretary-general, Sudan would be a number one priority, as one of the most horrific conflicts we have seen in recent history."

"The loss of human life on the ground is a tragedy, the atrocities committed by the RSF are atrocious, and I would support the work of all UN fact-finding missions for accountability and transitional justice," she added.

Nusseibeh told the media at the UN after the dialogue that, as a secretary-general, she would work to be a "risk-taker" and "prime mover in mediation efforts."

She has also separately said she would "put the UN's full ​political and practical support behind ongoing efforts ​to reach a ceasefire and a ⁠credible and inclusive political process that reflects the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people."

Nusseibeh served as UAE ambassador to the UN for more than a decade. She previously ​led the UAE's successful campaign to be elected to the Security Council as a non-permanent member in 2022-23. Diplomats working in New York widely describe her as a competent manager, skilled negotiator, and clear communicator.

An informal council poll this month placed former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan as the narrow frontrunner. But she and all other candidates received two or more opposing votes from the council's five permanent members, Russia, China, the US, France and Britain, who ultimately decided the outcome.

Whoever wins will have to tackle multiple crises, including several wars, cutbacks in American contributions to the ​UN, and the 193-member body's declining political relevance as Washington has pulled out of dozens of its agencies.

The next straw poll could take place as soon as Friday, but diplomats are still negotiating the format and exact timing.