The UNHCR conclave: has anything changed in 25 years?

In 2000, while working at UNHCR, I authored a brief article on the search to find a UN High Commissioner for Refugees to replace Sadako Ogata, who had held the position for the previous decade. The unpublished piece, which underlined the "arcane and Machiavellian" process employed to make this important appointment, is reproduced below in the first part of this blog.

The article is a particularly relevant piece of refugee history, as the race is now on to find a successor to the current High Commissioner, Filippo Grandi. In the second part of the blog, I ask whether the selection process has changed - and improved - in any way in the past twenty-five years.

Selecting the UNHCR chief: there must be a better way!

Martti Ahtisaari, Carl Bildt, Prince Hassan, Bernard Kouchner, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Julia Taft… By the time this article is published, we should all know whether any of these people – or someone else – has been appointed to the post of High Commissioner.

It is a post that promises to be a particularly demanding one in the current international context, and will require some exceptional qualities on the part of the successful candidate: diplomatic skills, fund-raising abilities, the capacity to manage a large and complex organization and, above all, an unwavering commitment to the protection of refugees. 

Even if the new High Commissioner fulfils all of these stringent demands, he or she will first have to overcome a major handicap: a lack of legitimacy, stemming from the arcane and Machiavellian manner in which the post is currently filled. 

You only have to sit for a few minutes in the UNHCR cafeteria in Geneva to hear the kind of considerations that seem to determine the choice of High Commissioner. “Kouchner has no chance because he declared his interest too early.” “Prince Hassan looks unlikely because Jordan isn’t a major donor.”  “Bildt might be in with a chance if he can get all the Nordics behind him.”  “Taft might be quite good, but we’ve never had a HighCommissioner from a Permanent Member of the Security Council.” “No British candidate will get the job because they have already got UNDP.”

In all of the rumour and gossip-mongering created by the current selection procedure (although that is perhaps too dignified a word for the horse-trading that precedes the nomination) the ability of any candidate to do the job and to do it well is all too rarely mentioned.

UNHCR’s major donors are always calling upon us to be more transparent. As an organization that is funded by the taxpayers’ money and which has a public duty to fulfil its mandate effectively, that is a totally reasonable request. But can we not expect the very same states to apply the same standards to their own behaviour?

Not too long ago, UNHCR started to interview internal candidates who had been shortlisted for a post: a small step in terms of normal human resource management standards; a giant leap for the High Commissioner’s Office. But that’s the disturbing thing. The High Commissioner’s post itself is not subject to the same rule!

It is too late to change the system that will produce Mrs Ogata’s successor.  But looking further into the future, should we not try to establish a more transparent procedure?

At a very minimum, the High Commissioner’s post should be internationally advertised, with a full job description and an indication of the skills and

experience required of the successful candidate. There should be a deadline for applications, and a selection panel (including at least one staff representative) should be established to shortlist and interview those who have applied for the post.

To the extent that is possible in the UN system, and in accordance with standard personnel practice, the process should be kept confidential. But the need for confidentiality should not be used to justify a lack of transparency.

The High Commissioner’s job is unlikely to become any easier over the next decade. To deal with the many challenges confronting UNHCR, the man or woman at the top will need to have the confidence of its staff members.  Indeed, experience has shown that UNHCR is at its weakest when that confidence is lacking.

We should not be naïve. A new selection procedure for the High Commissioner’s post will not resolve all of the organization’s difficulties. Nor will it prevent states and other actors from attempting to fix or by-pass whatever new system is put into place. But as key ‘stakeholders’ in UNHCR’s future, staff members and the Staff Council can at least stress the need to find a better and more confidence-inspiring way of filling the High Commissioner’s post.

Then and now

Twenty-five years on, little seems to have changed. With a new High Commissioner due to be appointed by the end of the year, we know very little about the exact manner in which the decision is made. States are invited to propose candidates for the post. Unknown senior UN officials take soundings from governments - especially Permanent Members of the Security Council - with respect to the suitability and acceptability of those whose names have been put forward. A preferred candidate is then selected and presented for a pro forma ‘election’ by the General Assembly.

Some progress has been in terms of transparency, largely due to the efforts of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, an NGO network, which for the past two decades has submitted a questionnaire to the known candidates for the UNHCR position, placing their responses in the public domain. In addition, a number of the people bidding for the post have appeared on YouTube, setting out their vision for the organization's future.

Even so, the selection process remains uncannily like that used to select the Pope by the Roman Catholic church, so vividly portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie Conclave. We simply do not know what pressures different states bring to bear on the process, or what conditions the successful candidate is required to accept in order to be appointed.

Diversity is another issue. Since Sadako Ogata of Japan stepped down, there have been three High Commissioners, all of them European men: Ruud Lubbers (former Dutch Prime Minister), Antonio Guterres (former Portuguese Prime Minister) and Filippo Grand (an Italian with years of experience working for UNHCR and UNRWA).

In this respect, the situation has improved somewhat. By the beginning of October 2025, there appeared to be eight candidates, three of them women and three from outside Europe: German MP Niels Annen; Swiss diplomat Christine Schraner Burgener; UNHCR staff member Matthew Crentsil of Ghana; Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo; Polish parliamentarian Szymon Holownia; Nicole de Moor, a former Belgian Secretary of State; former Iraqi President, Barham Salih; and Ahmet Yıldız, a Turkish diplomat.

With competition for the post taking shape, and the UNHCR Executive Committee meeting in the first week of October 2025, many questions remain to be answered.

First, will any last-minute candidates enter the race, as those with the best credentials and strongest state support tend to show their hand relatively late in the game? And will, as is usually expected, such government-backed nominees bring promises of additional funding with them?

Second, is there any real prospect of appointing a candidate from a developing country, or with lived experience of displacement and exile themselves? And will the growing number of Refugee-Led Organizations be consulted at all in the course of the selection procedure?

Third, given their growing propensity to disregard international refugee law, will UN member states and UNHCR Executive Committee members prefer to select a new chief who is prepared to play down the organization’s protection mandate? And will they opt for a candidate who is ready to cooperate in the mooted merger of UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration?

Finally, what candidate will meet with the approval of the Trump administration, in spite of its hostility towards refugees, asylum seekers and the UN system in general, remains UNHCR's most important donor? And what kind of person would actually want the High Commissioner's job, given UNHCR's deep funding crisis and the increasingly hostile environment in which the organization has to work?

We will begin to learn the answers to these questions when the UN Secretary-General announces the outcome of the UNHCR conclave later in the year. Which, we can be certain, will not be preceded by a puff of white smoke from the rooftop of the organization's Geneva headquarters.

Lead image courtesy of Flickr user Diariocritico de Venezuela.