This Week @UN: UN office leaves Geneva’s Palais Wilson; SecGen-race backroom deals; Pact for the Future’s future.
Plus: Shouting match; climate leadership; Costa Rica’s anti-hate steps; Venezuela’s quakes; sailor rescue in Strait of Hormuz paused; carry on, Keir Starmer.
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• Our #1 story, below: The UN Chief’s Plan to Ease the Organization’s Cash Crunch, by Damilola Banjo
From PassBlue this week:
• The UN Human Rights Office Moves Out of the Palais Wilson, photo essay by John Penney in Geneva (reprinted by Geneva Solutions)
• Backroom Deals Behind Secretary-General Candidate Races, op-ed by Ben Donaldson & Aditi Gorur
• Can the Pact for the Future Restore UN Confidence Quickly?, op-ed by Richard Ponzio & Rebecca Snyder
Top UN news:
Monday, June 22
• Spokesperson’s briefing: In response to a heated exchange on June 19 between Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon and Vanessa Frazier, head of the UN Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) office, about a separate report from the UN Sexual Violence in Conflict office, which blacklisted Israel for using sexual assault during conflict in 2025, Stéphane Dujarric, UN spokesperson, said that “it’s always important to maintain decorum in these meetings” and to “keep the focus on the meeting itself, which is the protection of children and the prevention of sexual violence and conflict.”
(In his remarks on June 19, Danon also criticized the recent CAAC report for documenting that state forces, including Israel’s, for being the main perpetrators of grave violations against children last year.) Dujarric added that “Ms. Frazier enjoys the full support and confidence” of Secretary-General António Guterres. Danon has since requested a “review of the continued tenure” of Frazier.
The June 19 side event, held in a UN basement-level conference room, was hosted by the CAAC and Sexual Violence in Conflict offices (the latter headed by Pramila Patten, who was not in the room) as well as the Argentine mission to the UN, commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. In his remarks, Danon said Patten “caved” to Guterres’s “obsession with targeting Israel,” at which point Frazier invoked a “point of order” in response to Danon’s “personal attacks” and to his going over his three-minute time limit. Danon yelled back at her, “No, you will be quiet now. . . shame on you!” and “you’re part of this obsession,” as the other hosts of the event stayed relatively silent and the room eventually quieted down.
As it turns out, however, there are no formal rules or protocols to follow for a side event, according to several former UN officials and diplomats familiar with such formats and who asked to remain anonymous. Additionally, there was no person designated as “chair” to maintain decorum, like formal meetings in the General Assembly. So, Frazier’s point of order appears to have not violated any rule.
• Pope Leo visited the Rome-based World Food Program, calling access to food a basic human right and for the international community to renew its commitment and increase resources to ending hunger and malnutrition. An estimated 266 million people across 47 cuntries faced acute food insecurity last year as funding for food assistance fell sharply.
• Dujarric remarked about the departure of Keir Starmer as UK prime minister, saying that Guterres “has always found Mr. Starmer to be a very reliable partner. And he’s very much appreciate the cooperation he’s had with him during his time in office.”
Tuesday, June 23
• Spokesperson’s briefing: In remarks delivered at the London Climate Action Week, Guterres said we are facing two crises that share the “same source: fossil fuels”: “A climate crisis racing toward dangerous tipping points,” including an “inevitable” overshoot of the 1.5-degree limit, and an “energy crisis […] driving up prices, fuelling inflation, and straining families, communities and public finances.” The two crises, Dujarric said, quoting Guterres, can be addressed by a “fast, fair transition to clean energy — and far greater protection for people already facing climate harm,” but “the transition is still not fast enough, not fair enough, and not close enough to people’s lives.” He highlighted that local and regional leadership is central to implementing a clean future that “is already here.”
Wednesday, June 24
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Chaloka Beyani, the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, commended the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly’s unanimous declaration of Congress as a “space free of hate speech, harassment, discrimination, and intolerance,” representing a commitment to “conduct democratic debate with absolute respect for human dignity.” Beyani called the motion a model to other countries in Latin America and in the world of legislators’ obligation to “do, not only in words, but also through their daily actions, to fight the scourge of hate and promote human dignity in the public space.”
Thursday, June 25
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Two “devastating earthquakes” in Venezuela have caused major destruction across several states, notably in the capital of Caracas, killing at least 235 people, injuring 4,300, and leaving others trapped or missing amid damaged infrastructure and basic services. The UN in Venezuela, including the Humanitarian Country Team, is mobilizing to assist the government in the disaster, with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), for example, facilitating urban search-and-rescue teams. Yet Dujarric warned that the response “will be a long haul.” On June 26, Guterres called the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, to express his “solidarity” with the people and government and pledge “the full cooperation of the UN system in support of the government led-relief efforts.” Additionally, $15 million has been released from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to support urgent aid.
Friday, June 26
• Spokesperson’s briefing: After the signing of the MoU between Iran and the US on June 18 to end their war, the head of the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO), Arsenio Domínguez, said in a remotely held media briefing that the London-based agency and Oman have launched an evacuation framework (in cooperation with Iran, the US and all other coastal states in the region) to assist the 11,000 sailors stranded on 600 vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and that in the last three days or so, the IMO evacuated 115 vessels and 2,500 seafarers. The plan, however, is hindered by the presence of sea mines in certain parts of the waterway and was paused temporarily on June 25 due to a vessel having been struck by a drone from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (No one on the vessel was injured.) Domínguez said it was too soon to say why the IRGC attacked the “Ever Lovely,” but it had not been participating in the new evacuation framework. (On June 26, the US counterattacked by striking Iranian missiles and drone sites.) Dujarric said the UN was “keen to see a sustained reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, based on the concept of freedom of navigation.”
ICYMI:
SecGen race: Jeju Forum Featuring UN Secretary-General Candidates, video
SecGen race: Secretary-General Candidate Macky Sall Backs Peacebuilder Donald Trump’s Reforms to Make the UN Great Again, news article
US: Joint Statement Following the Ministerial Meeting of the US and Gulf Cooperation Council, government statement
Haiti: China Pressures UN to Slash Human Rights Funding in Haiti, NGO report
Board of Peace: BoP Members to Recalibrate at Cyprus Resort After Rocky First Six Months, news article
Myanmar: Army Killed Over 700 Civilians in Six Months, UN news article
Israel: Israel Continues to Commit Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes Deliberately, UN report
Peacekeepers: New Security Council Resolution Upholds Accountability for Attacks Against Peacekeepers, UN news article
Security Council: Briefing on Implementation of Security Council Resolutions, NGO report
Women: The World Becomes Safer When There Are More Women’s Voices at the Negotiating Table (interview with Kyrgyzstan diplomat), UN news article
Women: When Good Algorithms Go Sexist: Why and How to Advance AI Gender Equity, scientific study
Islamabad MoU: Assessing the MoU and US-Iran Nuclear Negotiations, NGO analysis
UN: Global Governance Innovation Report 2026, “Advancing the Pact for the Future and a New Peace & Security Architecture,” NGO report
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland, The Hague and Cyprus). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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