What powers does the Secretary-General of the United Nations have?

Question

What kind of stuff can he do and not do?

How influential is he?

What should be changed about the position?

Answer 1

The basic task of the SG is to manage the organisation, actually. He is the head of the Secretariat and he reports its actions to the General Assembly or the Security Council. The charter on its article 97 explains that the role is to be the Chief Administrative Officer or UN.

Answer 2

The SG is a puppet of the USA.

My 2 cents.

Answer 3

The SG has lots of responsibility, some influence, but no power.

The SG is *not* the head of the UN. He (or, hopefully someday, she) is more of a spokesperson. Sometimes SG's take an active role in the public sphere, encouraging certain actions or restraint by various government bodies, country populations or certain individuals. Other times, SG's are very much behind-the-scenes negotiators -- or just ribbon-cutters.

The role of the secretary-general

http://www.un.org/sg/sgrole.shtml

Wikipedia entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nati...

Answer 4

Ordering lunch and buying stationary maybe. For anything else, he has to get lots of people's approval.

Sorry if that didn't help with your homework.