Who can speak for the United Nations on human rights with any credibility these days?
Last week, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that he wants an open competition to determine who will become the new U.N. high commissioner for human rights when the position becomes vacant this summer. This is an explosively sensitive portfolio. The high commissioner is historically one of the most recognizable U.N. officials after the secretary-general. The media treat whoever holds the post as a sort of modern-day moral oracle.
The outgoing incumbent, Prince Zeid Raad al-Hussein of Jordan, has not shied away from this vocation.