A group of 24 Heads of State and Government that make up the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) has backed a joint declaration in which they request that the future Secretary-General of the United Nations be a person originating from Latin America or the Caribbean, appealing to the principle of "equitable geographic balance" in the leadership of the international organization.
As the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry has detailed, the text has been officially conveyed by means of a letter signed by Uruguay’s Minister of Foreign Relations, Mario Lubetkin—whose country holds the Pro Tempore Presidency of the bloc—and sent to the Ambassador of Latvia to the UN and rotating President of the Security Council, Sanita Pavluta-Deslandes.
In the letter, dated in Montevideo, Lubetkin stresses that the declaration reaffirms "at the highest political level" the region’s joint aspiration, previously expressed by the Foreign Ministers, and calls on both the Security Council and the UN General Assembly to take this position into account throughout the entire process of consultations and election.
In the document, the signatory leaders emphasize that "the time has come" for a representative of Latin America and the Caribbean to lead the General Secretariat, arguing that his election will strengthen diversity, multilateralism, and International Law, and will help ensure that all regions of the world are represented in the definition of the UN’s strategic priorities.
At the same time, CELAC highlights its "historic contribution" to peace, security, and the defense of Human Rights, underscoring its status as a nuclear-weapon-free zone thanks to the Treaty of Tlatelolco and its adherence to the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.
The submission of this formal request to the United Nations comes on the eve of a new informal poll by the Security Council in New York regarding the candidates to replace the current Secretary-General, the Portuguese António Guterres.