A Conversation With U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield discusses the future of multilateralism and U.S. commitments to reforming the United Nations Security Council to be more inclusive, representative, and legitimate.

LABOTT: Hello. I’m Elise Labott. Thank you all for being here. I’m the new Murrow press fellow here at the Council on Foreign Relations. And this is my first event presiding, not as a member but as a member of the—staff of the Council. And so I’m thrilled to be here. 

And I just, if you don’t mind, want to give a shoutout to my other military fellows, and intelligence, and nuclear fellows that are also here. Really soaking up that you and the community. And we’re really looking forward to it this year. It’s so great to see so many friends in the audience. My first job was covering the United Nations, and so I’m thrilled to be here with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.  

Just a couple of quick announcements. Just want to remind you that this meeting is on the record. We’re joined here by Council members here in New York and more than 250 on Zoom. So the ambassador is going to make some remarks, and then we’ll have a discussion, and then we’ll open it up to questions from you. Thank you so much for being here. (Applause.) 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Good afternoon, everyone. (Applause.) It’s really great to be here with all of you. And let me just start by thanking the Council on Foreign Relations for having me today, and for having me at other locations as well. And I particularly want to thank you, Elise, for taking the time to sit down with me, and for what I know will be a very insightful conversation. I was looking at your bio, and I saw that you graduated from University of Wisconsin, so we have that in common. So I’ll look forward to, off the record, having a talk about your experiences—(laughter)—in the Badger State. 

Today we officially begin the ten-day countdown to high level week. First Avenue traffic cones have started to emerge from hibernation. The coffee shops have begun girding themselves for the morning crush. All of the meetings—all of the marathon bilats, the side events, the plenaries that we will be having—they offer us the opportunity to take stock of where we are and, more importantly, where we’re going as an international community.  

But before we dive into the future of multilateralism, I want to take a moment to step back to the past. The year is 1965, two decades out from the end of World War II and the start of the United Nations. The world is experiencing rapid decolonization across Africa, Asia, South America. And the U.N. has grown, accordingly, from fifty-one member states in 1945 to 170 just twenty years later. All the while, the multilateral system is being tested by a number of challenges. Of course, there’s the Cold War, the growing threat of nuclear conflict, and rapid advancements in science and technology.  

Against this backdrop, the world is asking big questions about the United Nations, whether this institution is representative and legitimate, whether it’s built to meet the challenges of the day, as well as the challenges of the future. And in particular, member states are looking at the Security Council. Up until this point, the council counted only eleven members and its composition reflected the world as it was in 1945, rather than the realities of the 1960s. There was, for example, no seat reserved for Africa, but there was one for British commonwealth countries. There was a seat allotted to Western Europe in addition to the permanent seats held by France and the United Kingdom, but only one to be shared between Eastern Europe and all of Asia.  

Faced with a crisis of confidence, it was clear that the U.N. needed to evolve. And the United States had a decision to make. We could fight that evolution or get on board with it. The rest, as they say, is history. In the years to come, we saw dramatic change in how the U.N. approached peacekeeping and development, technology and science. And in 1965, during U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg’s earliest days in office, we saw change in the size and the composition of the U.N. Security Council. Eleven seats grew to fifteen, with new nonpermanent seats allocated to Asia, Latin America, and Africa. And that’s the way it has been ever since. 

Which brings us to today. The post-Cold War era is over. And we have another moment of profound change and tremendous challenge to the world and the multilateral system that governs it. I think about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the most serious shock to the U.N. system since its inception. Here was a permanent member—a permanent member—of the Security Council undermining the U.N.’s founding principles—sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights. But in addition to the violations that strike at the very heart of the charter, there was also the challenges and opportunities its drafters could have never imagined eighty years ago.  

Crises like climate change and COVID-19, humanitarian catastrophes often born of conflict and insecurity in every corner of the world—from Sudan to Gaza to Haiti and elsewhere. New technologies like artificial intelligence. And a United Nations with 193 member states representing eighty billion people across the world, many of whom are still striving to live healthy, prosperous, free, and dignified lives. The world is only continuing to grow and change, so it’s clear that it’s past time once again for this institution to grow and change too.  

Now, just as then, countries have a decision to make. We can fight for that evolution or we can help lead it. For our part, we’ve seen the consequences of choosing incorrectly. And there’s nothing better than learning from your mistakes. We’ve learned in recent years that when we abandon our leadership, other world powers are all too eager to fill the vacuum and shape the world order toward their undemocratic ends. That’s why at the beginning of his administration President Biden announced that the United States was back. We were back at the United Nations and we were ready to pursue relentless diplomacy to address the challenges that matter most to people’s lives.  

Over nearly four years, we’ve worked to do just that—to defend democracy and uphold the U.N. Charter, to lead U.N. action on everything from food security to gender equity, to reinvest in the U.N. system and put forward top-tier American talent to take on key U.N. roles. But to achieve the future we all collectively seek we need to do more than work within the U.N. system as it is. We need to ask ourselves, how can we reshape the U.N.? How can we reshape the U.N. and the multilateral system more broadly to meet the challenges of this century? 

The Biden-Harris administration has sought, through our words and our actions, to answer that very question. Rethinking how we deploy peacekeeping operations, including through a new arrangement that empowers AU missions to respond to Africa’s growing security challenges. Drafting and securing adoption of the first ever—first ever—U.N. resolution establishing rules on artificial intelligence. Strengthening the capacity of multilateral development banks to support developing economies. Championing sanctions reform to ensure humanitarian carve outs, all while supporting the secretary-general’s Summit of the Future Initiative.  

It is clear that we have a ways to go. So much of the U.N. system needs reform and it needs reinvigoration. And in the words of the late Madeleine Albright, my friend and my mentor, she stated, and I quote, “institutions, like people, seventy and over need a little bit of refurbishing,” unquote. (Laughter.) Of course, I wouldn’t know anything about that, as a twenty-five-year-old—(laughter)—despite the fact that I’ve been doing this work for over forty years. But among the most glaring anachronisms of this institution seventy and over is the one we grapple with all the way back to 1965, the composition of the U.N. Security Council.  

And I’m hardly the first to say this. For years countries have been calling for a more inclusive and a more representative council, one that reflects the demographics of today’s world and better responds to the challenges that we face today. It’s why two years ago, President Biden announced that the United States supports expanding the Security Council to provide permanent representation for countries from Africa, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean. That in addition to the countries we long supported for permanent seats—India, Japan, and Germany—we would support Africa and the—Latin America and the Caribbean.  

After that announcement, I embarked on what I call the listening tour to see how we could make the president’s vision a reality. And I’ve met with over eighty countries, asking leaders what they want to see in a reformed council. Secretary Blinken and his team have engaged in Washington and in foreign capitals. You know, there’s a saying, if you ask the United Nations a question, you’ll get 193 answers. Well, the question of whether and how to change the Security Council has no—it was no exception. But for all of these disagreements, these differences, there was one thing everyone agreed on: The status quo was just not cutting it. And it’s time to make change.  

So in addition to reform commitments we’ve already made, today I’m announcing the United States supports three additional changes in to the Security Council. First, I want to start with Africa. This is, in many ways, personal to me. As you know, I have lived and worked across the continent. I have traveled extensively across Africa. And so I know firsthand the diversity and the talent, the depth and breadth of expertise and experiences on African continent. As it stands, there are currently three nonpermanent seats on the Security Council allocated to African countries on a rotating basis for two years. The problem is these elected seats don’t enable African countries to deliver the full benefit of their knowledge and voices to the work of the council, to consistently lead on the challenges that affect all of us, and disproportionately affect Africa.  

That is why, in addition to nonpermanent memberships for African countries, the United States supports creating two permanent seats for Africa on the council. It’s what our African partners seek, and we believe this is what is just. From Kenya’s contribution to the multilateral security support mission in Haiti, to Gabon’s support to protect our planet, we have seen how African leadership not only benefits the lives of Africans, but people across the globe. So now it’s time for African leadership to have a permanent place on the Security Council too. 

Second, since its founding the Security Council has reserved rotating seats for different regions. But the truth is, even countries that border each other can be more different than similar. And, conversely, even countries miles apart are more similar than different. In particular, over the past few years we’ve heard from a number of member states that it’s time to rethink and look beyond just regional representation and consider reserving a seat on the council for small island developing states. Now, to be clear, there are thirty-nine of these states, so it’s not a monolith. They are home to sixty-five million people across over a thousand islands. 

But each has critical insights on a range of international peace and security issues, including, notably, the impact of climate change. In fact, I met with Pacific Island countries earlier today and heard some of their priorities focused on issues related to the impact of sea rise and climate change. These perspectives deserve consistent representation. And so I’m also proud to announce that the United States supports creating a new elected seat on the Security Council for small island developing states. We’ve never had this kind of cross-regional rotating seat before, but far more important than precedent is a Security Council that is representative, inclusive, and can lead us into the future. 

And that gets me to my third and final announcement. Much of the conversation around Security Council reform has been just that—it’s a conversation. We sit around the table every year and, as one of my colleagues said, we just give the same speech over and over and over again. And so many of these countries I’ve talked to, spanning vastly different approaches and opinions, agree that it’s time to stop talking in circles, stop repeating what we’ve said year-in and year-out, and take action to actually put down our principles on paper and begin the process of getting a resolution over the finish line.  

Now, these are—there are those who disagree with this. They argue that before we begin negotiations on a resolution, all 193 member states need to be in agreement about what a reformed council should look like. Just imagine all 193 of us. I’m an optimist, though. And I’m also a realist. And the reality is this, no amount of conversations will ever get us to a place of total consensus on this issue. The good news is we’ve been here before. Back in the 1960s, when the General Assembly last decided to expand the council, very few member states were in agreement on how to proceed. Despite deep divides, member states understood the gravity of the moment they were in, and so they chose to not let perfect be the enemy of the good. They rolled up their sleeves and they got to work.  

Now it’s time for us to do exactly the same. And so my final announcement is that the United States supports engaging in text-based negotiations on council reform. And this may seem weedy inside baseball news, but it’s actually a big deal. It means we’re ready to work with other countries to negotiate language, prepare amendments, and ready this resolution for a vote in the General Assembly and, ultimately, amend the U.N. Charter.  

Look, I regularly say diplomacy is hard. And diplomacy about diplomacy, about the composition and core mission of our multilateral system, is especially challenging. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from nearly four years at the U.N. and nearly four decades as a diplomat, it’s the power of personal engagement to overcome seemingly insurmountable differences. That when you sit down, actually sit down and talk to people, leave your ego outside the door and your agenda outside the door and you talk to them in good faith and in good spirit, you can actually find common ground.  

And that’s why I’ve made it my mission to have personal, bilateral conversations with every one of the 188 countries the United States has diplomatic relations with. Three and a half years, we only have a few more to go. As we head into the final high-level week of the Biden administration, I’m eager to have even more of these honest, productive conversations, to collaborate on solutions to make the U.N. development system more accountable and more coherent, and the U.N. humanitarian system more efficient and more effective, to find ways to increase transparency, address emerging technologies, and incorporate gender and racial equality in our work, and finally—to finally begin building a representative, inclusive council fit for the twenty-first century. 

You know, when faced with the prospects of reform in the 1960s, the United States was, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. One State Department official summed it up best with, change on the horizon, the U.S. would, quote, “do better to acquiesce an enlargement than fight it.” Today, we have the responsibility to do better than just acquiesce. The United States can and must lead. We must lead with an affirmative agenda for the future of multilateralism, one that lives up to the values enshrined in the past, but also one that is in line with the realities of the present, and one that allows us to meet the challenges and the opportunities to come in the future.  

So with that, I’m excited to dive into the discussion, and the challenges and opportunities, with Elise. Elise, I’ll turn it over to you. (Applause.) 

LABOTT: Thank you, Ambassador, for that news-making speech. And thank you for making those announcements at the Council. We’re thrilled to dive in. It is true that, you know, the—we call the UNGA speed dating, because you have all those meetings, and those bilats, plenaries. Let’s talk about—let’s talk about—you know, dive into what you discussed here. So, look, as you said, this isn’t the first time you push for reform. Oh, they didn’t turn my mic on. I do have quite a loud voice, so can you hear me, OK? Yeah? OK.  

Let’s just dive in. You know, critics might say that, you know, pushing for reform—you know how difficult this is going to be. How do you ensure that this is not a symbolic gesture? That this is not just about optics than substance? Because it’s going to be so difficult. It’s going to be such a difficult process. How do you convince skeptical nations? I mean, we just have to start with that, right, especially in the Global South, that this is not virtue signaling? That you are really, really trying to make a genuine push for reform? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, first of all, we can’t avoid something because it’s hard. If we avoided diplomacy because it’s hard, we would never do it. So I acknowledge that this is not going to be easy. But I have engaged with, as I said, more than eighty countries on this. And they are all excited about this possibility, because what we—what the United States did is that we kind of opened the door a little bit wider than it had ever been open before, by openly discussing our own position. There was a time when we didn’t support this. And so, yes, it required some convincing. It required a lot of engagement. And I have done that engagement relentlessly over the past two years.  

And I think everyone that I’ve spoken to, they’ve all agreed that this is the direction we want to go in. Do they agree with every detail of what we’re proposing? No. This is what negotiations are for. But what they agree to is that it’s time to move the needle on this, and move it significantly. When I spoke to the Sierra Leone PR, I think he used the word this is seismic. I wouldn’t have gone that far.  

LABOTT: Well, it’ll be seismic if it happens, right?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yeah. It’s seismic that it is happening. 

LABOTT: OK. 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: And now we have to go to the next level and make it a reality.  

LABOTT: OK. A lot of countries have said over the years that they were in support of reform. Now they’re really going to have to put their cards on the table. You’ve laid out your position. And now you’re going to be looking for other countries to kind of put up or shut up, that they have to show whether they really support or not. That’s what these text-based negotiations are about? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: That’s exactly what the text-based negotiations will allow. And what the cofacilitators have suggested is that countries kind of put together their models for U.N. reform on the table in writing. And we sit with those models and use that as the basis for negotiations.  

LABOTT: So you said you’ve learned from your mistakes. This is not the first effort at U.N. reform. What have you learned in these past efforts that you’re going to apply now to make sure that this effort is different than the past?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, we’ve already started to show that, and that is the significant engagements that we’ve had over the course of the past two years. We are talking to people. There is no country too small, no country insignificant, because when we go into the General Assembly to vote every vote counts. And so we know that we have to engage with everyone. We have to engage with the small island developing countries. We have to engage with small countries in Africa. We have to engage with the landlocked developing countries. We have to engage with the P-5. We have to engage with other regions. So we have engaged with—we’ve pretty much engaged with the world.  

LABOTT: So, you know, these are text-based negotiations. And I know how painstaking these texts can—negotiations can be on just a resolution. So how do you ensure that this doesn’t fall victim to the same gridlock that has stalled meaningful changes, and ensure that these negotiations lead to results? And how do you balance the urgency of reform with this painstaking process?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, we’re not putting a timeframe on this. To put a timeframe on this would probably set us up for failure. So we are relying on the cofacilitators to lead this process, as they have done over many years, and move forward the discussions. But those painstaking negotiations we do—and I commend my staff. Sometimes I hear that they’re negotiating till 4:00 a.m. in the morning, so ordering out for pizza to continue the negotiations. This is going to be hard. And we’re going to have to do that deep dive into this. But I think what I’ve heard from everyone is, it’s time. And it has to happen. And we have to start the work on this now. 

LABOTT: You know, when you tell people U.N. reform, new members—perm members on the council, the first thing is that they say that Russia and China are unlikely to support it because it’s going to diminish their influence. And how do you plan to overcome that opposition, specifically due to their veto power? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Again, this is going to be tough negotiations. And it’s not going to just be us talking to Russia and China. It’s going to be the other 190-plus countries, the other ten members of the Security Council talking to Russia and China about what they want to see in terms of changes. And so, again, I think their influence, with our influence, as well as the interests of Russia and China, will certainly come into play. But I think we can—and, again, I’m not being pollyannaish. But I am being optimistic that I think we can come to an agreement. Will it be a perfect agreement? No. To get to consensus, there will—we will all have to negotiate away some of our own priorities.  

LABOTT: OK, so permanent membership comes with a lot of perks, just like Council membership comes with a lot of perks. (Laughter.) And that’s the veto. So these new members, are they going to have veto power?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: So we’ve been very, very clear that we do not support expansion of the veto. And, you know, I’ve had a number of discussions with my African colleagues who put this kind of take it or leave it position on the table. We get two seats and we get the veto. And the reason we want the veto is because you have it. But the reason we hate the veto is because it makes the council dysfunctional. And so if veto makes the council—veto power makes the council dysfunctional, in their view, why would you expand it? And that’s what I have said to them. Why would you want to expand the veto power? What you should be working to do is what your actual goal is, to limit the veto power. And I don’t know, you know, what will go into the negotiations that will get us to a place of common ground, but I think we can get there. 

LABOTT: Well, and I think we all know that the veto is so destructive, especially when it comes to Russia and China using their veto power. So why retain it? Why don’t we just have permanent members and nobody has a veto? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yeah. And we have veto power as well. And none of the permanent members want to give up their veto power, including us. I’m being honest about that. We don’t want to give up our veto power. And we do think if we expand that veto power across the board it will make the council more dysfunctional. 

LABOTT: OK, but on the other hand, if you don’t have veto power, then what is the power of membership?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, one is that they can permanently engage on issues of significance to them, and actually help the council to do its work. The veto power is not all encompassing. I was just checking before coming here, we’ve passed over 180 resolutions in the past four years. And these resolutions are passed with countries engaging with us to ensure that their priorities, their values are in those resolutions. So the council works despite the veto power.  

LABOTT: OK. You’ve announced support for new permanent seats for countries like Germany and Japan. Where do you draw the line? I mean, how do you decide which nations deserve permanent seats, and not excluding other growing powers like Brazil or South Africa, for instance.  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, we—well, we have indicated that we support two permanent seats for Africa. How that plays out on the Africa continent will be up to the Africans to determine. 

LABOTT: Well, so the Africans will determine who those permanent members are? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: They’re going to run and have to be voted on by 193 members. But who are their candidates for this? They’ll decide that themselves. It’s not for me to tell the Africans you need to take South Africa, or you need to take Egypt, or you need to, you know, take Kenya. They will determine who will run for their seats. 

LABOTT: Right, but, I mean, the U.S., even when you’re talking about which members are up for voting on the Security Council, U.S. surely has a lot of influence working with those nations. And so how do you navigate regional politics within Africa to ensure that there’s fair representation, without deepening these existing rivalries on the continent?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, again, I think this is going to be for the Africans to determine. But, yes, we do have influence. We’ll express our views. We’re going to vote. And we’re going to show an interest in particular candidates over other candidates. But will the candidate that we are in favor of win? I don’t know. Again, I will leave it to the Africans to determine who they will put on the ballot to run before the General Assembly.  

LABOTT: OK. I’m intrigued by this new seat for the small island developing states. It’s an innovative idea. But giving the kind of scale and complexity of these challenges that you discuss, how do you ensure—these are small states. They’re subject to influence from bigger, permanent members. How do you—how do you ensure that they have a meaningful voice in the Security Council decisions, and not a symbolic one that gets kind of drowned out by those heavier powers?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, we see it every day. We have small countries who are participating as elected members of the Security Council. And I can tell you, working with those countries and seeing how they operate in the—they guard their sovereignty and their independence and their control of their own positions very, very strongly. And so they lay out their positions and they work with us. They work with others. They will push us and as well as the Chinese and the Russians to support positions that they have. And we will engage with them to support positions that we have. But what I’ve seen in almost all the cases is that they vote based on their own commitments and their own values.  

LABOTT: OK, so Security Council reform requires amending the U.N. Charter, which would also need a supermajority in the U.S. Senate. Given the polarization we face in Congress, how realistic is it that you can pass the Senate, do you think? And have you had member—meetings with senators about this? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I have engaged with members on this. And we don’t know what our Senate is going to look like, and where—how they will be voting in the future. So we just have to play the cards that we have at hand when we—when we deal our hand. So there are a large number of members of Congress, senators, who are very pro-U.N., who support reforms at the U.N., and not just in the Security Council but how to make the U.N. more efficient, how to make the U.N. more representative. So we will be engaging across the administration, from the State Department and the White House, with members of Congress, once this becomes a reality. And, again, I don’t know when that will be. 

LABOTT: Well, I mean, on that note, you know, we could have a new—well, we will have a new administration. But we could have a new party in Congress. We could have a new party in office—in the presidency. How do you deal with the fact that, you know, we’ve seen in the past with other issues that there’s—that countries are kind of a little bit concerned about the consistency of the U.S. And that how do you ensure members that are already kind of skeptical—might be skeptical of the process, that the U.S. is going to stay with us for the long term? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: They’re just going to have to watch and see what happens. I think our political system is very public. People see, you know, the thinking of our political—of our politicians. But I think there is a general sense that the United States, across the board, that we value the United Nations, despite what we might say otherwise. That there is a value to the United Nations and that we need the United Nations. 

LABOTT: At the same time, the U.S. is the global superpower, and you do support multilateralism, but we also have a history in this country of acting unilaterally when we must. So how do you reconcile the commitment to, you know, doubling down on multilateralism while especially kind of maintaining that autonomy in global matters of peace and security? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Look, I think every country has their own priorities and value their bilateral relationships and their own values. None of them are unlike us. But I think when we get in the context of this United Nations down the road, people do think multilaterally. And they look for allies who will think like them. But when we’re looking at our multilateral values, we’re not pushing our unilateral values off the table, because those values feed into what we do at the United Nations. So, yes, it could be problematic, but we’ll face it when we get to it. 

LABOTT: This is a—is a very, you know, kind of new thing that you’re doing with the council. But let’s just—you know, the council itself has been, you know, paralyzed by vetoes, geopolitical tensions. I mean, I think everyone in this room wants to know, like, is meaningful action still possible through the U.N. Security Council?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Please, Elise, I just said we did 180 resolutions in the past four years. A hundred eighty resolutions. And most of them passed by consensus. What people tend to focus on is where we fail. That’s the stuff that makes news. It’s newsworthy when the veto power is used. It is not newsworthy when we pass by consensus a resolution, when we pass a resolution supporting the Kenyan MSS into Haiti, we pass a resolution really redefining how we fund AU missions for peace support, pass a resolution that was historic to deal with how we deal with the impact of sanctions on humanitarian programs—so doing a carve out for humanitarian work. And all of these resolutions were supported, numerous resolutions that are dealing with regional issues that we pass every single day. So is the veto power used? Yes, it’s used. But it is not used all the time. And it’s—I think we can count on our hands when we’ve used it. 

LABOTT: No, that’s a fair point. I think, though, you know, we’re thinking of these conflicts around the world, right? When I was covering the State Department it was Syria. We couldn’t get a resolution passed on Syria. Now it’s—you know, it’s hard to get a resolution—or, let’s go back to Lebanon in 2006. We couldn’t get a resolution passed on Israel, or, you know, Ukraine because of these veto powers. So maybe I should amend my question to be, like, on these kind of—these hard, you know, thorny issues of peace and security, how do we get past this issue?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: So, it’s hard. And I use that a lot. It’s hard. But we’ve had four resolutions—four resolutions on Israel that we’ve passed in the past—in the past few months, dealing with the humanitarian situation. We actually regularly passed a resolution on Syria. Despite having the problems we had in the past, we were actually able to get a cross-border resolution that was passed over a number of years on Syria. So we’ll keep—we’ll keep trying to refine.  

We do intense negotiations. I negotiated for hours—personally negotiated on a resolution on humanitarian that we passed in December on Gaza, sitting with the—with other members of the council negotiating every single sentence, every comma, every and, but, the, in the resolution. And we got the resolution passed. So, again, with commitment, we can actually get the work done. Do we fail sometimes? Unfortunately, we do. And every failure is difficult. Every veto is difficult.  

LABOTT: I mean, on the issue of Israel, it just seems that, you know, like you said, you’re able to pass resolutions on Sudan, or on Ethiopia and Eritrea. But when it comes to Israel it seems that the council itself, but the larger U.N. body, has a hard time grappling with issues related to Israel and the Palestinians. And I think there’s a lot of ambivalence about this conflict and what the council should do.  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yeah, I don’t know if there’s ambivalence. There is a lot of emotions around this issue. And it—you know, we see it every single day on the news. But we—as I said, we got four resolutions passed. And actually, people have forgotten that one resolution that we put on the table that actually brought all of these issues to the fore, we got twelve votes, plus ours, and Russia vetoed that resolution. People forget that Russia vetoed that resolution. So, yes, we do have problems. But again— 

LABOTT: Does the U.N. have an Israel problem?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I think that we have an Israel problem in the U.N. And there is an inordinately over focus on Israel, even before Gaza, on Israel in the U.N. It’s something that we have raised on a regular basis. There’s no other country in the world that has a monthly meeting on the council’s agenda, going back decades. So, yes, there is an unfair amount of focus on Israel in the U.N. And it is problematic.  

LABOTT: One more question in Israel, and then I want to ask about Kenya and open it up to the audience. What is the U.S. going to do as more and more countries, as they are, are starting to recognize the Palestinian state, and the Palestinians are becoming eligible for membership in some of these organizations? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: A state has certain responsibilities for its people. And I do not believe the Palestinians, as they exist right now, have all of the elements to give it statehood. And so, yes, there are a large number of states that are recognizing Palestinian statehood. They have now been given an alphabetized place in the General Assembly. But they—we have to deal with the issues of peace and security. And all of that is going to have to be negotiated between the two parties on the ground for this to work in an effective way. 

LABOTT: The mandate for Kenya, the Kenyan-led mission in Haiti, is coming up in a few weeks. It’s been facing significant shortages and delays and concerns about the accountability. Do you see a renewal of the mandate?  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yes. 

LABOTT: You do? Do you think it can still achieve its objectives as it stands? I mean, they’re just—they’ve been on the ground, but it’s been a little bit hard kind of standing up.  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: They will achieve their mandate. And they are working toward that. I visited Haiti earlier this year. And I had an opportunity to meet with the Kenyans, to meet with the transitional Haitian prime minister, and the transitional Presidential Council, as well as civil society members, and the U.N. And I think there is a strong sense that the Kenyan presence is making a difference. We’re not hearing all of the kinds of attacks that we were hearing before. And the Kenyans are getting more and more resources. They have engaged with the gangs on several occasions. And they have been quite successful in that engagement. More needs to be done. And more needs to be done faster. And we’re all working to ensure that that happens. But I think the resolution is going to pass. And we’re going to see the Kenyans continue to help the Haitian people achieve what they want, and that’s peace and security. 

LABOTT: Ambassador, thank you for the conversation. I’d like to open it up to members now, and here and online, to join our conversation. We’ll begin with a question here in the room. This is a full room. If you could quickly identify yourself and your affiliation and ask a short question, we’ll try to get as many as we can. And we’ll also go to members online. Remember, this meeting is on the record. 

Q: Thank you, Ambassador. 

I wanted to ask about the International Court of Justice decision, ruling, that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end, and ordering member states, including the United States, to end support for Israel that assists their settlements, as well as the impending arrest warrant against Netanyahu and the Israeli foreign minister. Are you going to abide by the International Court of Justice orders? Are you going to arrest Netanyahu and the foreign minister if he turns up in the United States? And, you know, what is your feeling on these international court rulings? Thank you. 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Let me start with the last part of that. We have a problem with the court’s ruling. And we’ve been clear that we have a problem with the court’s ruling. And I think you know the answer to the question about whether we will arrest President Netanyahu. He was here in the United States a few weeks ago and he was not arrested. The warrant was out before that. OK, well, let me be clear, we will not arrest him. And because we do not—we have a question about the jurisdiction of the ICC on Israel, and we’ve made that very, very clear. 

LABOTT: OK. We’re going to go right here, and then we’ll go to Evelyn in the front. 

Q: Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you for a great discussion.  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you.  

Q: Is there anything in the U.N. Charter—oh, Earl Carr, representing CJPA Global Advisors. 

Is there anything in the U.N. Charter which states how a member or nonmember—how a member can be removed from the—from the international community? Is there anything about that? 

LABOTT: Did you have anybody in mind? (Laughter.) 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: That’s a great question. And it’s a question I’ve been asked over and over again. And there is a provision, and I don’t know if our lawyers are in the room, it’s like 27C3, or something, in the Charter, that allows for a member to be—to be kicked out of the Security Council and the U.N. That has not been used recently. In fact, I don’t even remember when It was used. Again, I will turn to the lawyers who may know the answer to that question. But it is not easy. It’s not easy to do. And here’s why it’s not easy, because the—here’s where we talk about the veto—the P-5 can veto this. And the person—the country that, of course, everybody’s talking about, is a P-5 country. 

LABOTT: OK. We have a question online, and then we’re going to go to Evelyn in the front. And just—I will—I will try and get to as many questions as I can.  

OPERATOR: We’ll take our next question from Mo Ibrahim. 

LABOTT: Hi, Mo. 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Hi, Mo. 

Q: Hi. Hi, thank you, Ambassador. And it’s wonderful to see you on the screen. 

We have in Sudan a terrible war and 150,000 people killed, 10 million refugees, 2 million immigrants, to seven neighboring countries. The U.N. adopted some time ago a duty to protect. Why the Security Council is not assuming so far its duty to protect? 

LABOTT: Great question, Mo. Responsibility to protect. 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: That is a great—that is a great question. And I can tell you, it has been extraordinarily difficult, even as a permanent member of the Security Council, to get the council to pay attention to what is happening in Sudan. You recited the statistics, the number of people killed, the number of people who have been forced from their homes and living in IDP situations, the number of refugees. It is, I would argue, the worst situation that we have seen in the world. And the divisions within the Council on how to address this, unfortunately, have been kind of aired in public.  

And what I would like to see? I would like to see the A3 members of the Security Council lead on this and push the Security Council to address these issues related to Sudan more consistently. We have had a number of meetings on the situation in Sudan. I’ve given press conference, I’ve written articles on the situation. The negotiations, as you know, to find a solution continue, and to no avail. And I really think it’s time that we ramp up our efforts to get more attention paid to this and get the U.N. engaged on the situation there.  

We’ve been able, the last negotiations, to get some progress on the humanitarian side, opening up humanitarian corridors. But it’s not enough. It is absolutely not enough. And sometimes, Mo, people ask me, you know, what keeps me awake at night, and it’s Sudan because people don’t pay attention to Sudan. It’s like crickets when we’re talking about Sudan. We’re focused on the situation in Gaza. We’re focused on the situation in Ukraine. And we need to focus more attention on what is happening in Sudan.  

LABOTT: Thank you.  

Q: Thank you. 

LABOTT: Again, if you have a question, please raise your hand. We’ll go to Evelyn, and then we’ll go to this gentleman right here. 

Q: Hello, Ambassador. I’m Evelyn Leopold, an independent journalist at the U.N., and head of the Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists. 

God, you remind me of Sudan. I went there—I went to Darfur with the Security Council in 2003. And it looks like it hasn’t changed much. But my question was, what did you have in mind for the so-called G-4—Germany, Brazil, Japan, and India? Because Italy would object to Germany, because it feels it’s in competition. Brazil, the Latin Americans say it speaks the wrong language. Japan, China would object seriously. And India, Pakistan’s already organizing as many Islamic States as it can against India. Thank you, Ambassador. 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: OK, so thank you so much for that question. And on the G-4, we have expressed our support for Japan and Germany and India. We have not explicitly expressed support for Brazil. India has the largest population in the world. And we really, really strongly support their being on the council. And I think there are just no grounds for denying India that. But there will be people who will be opposed to various countries for various reasons. And that’s all going to be part of our negotiations moving forward.  

LABOTT: OK. We have one more question online.  

OPERATOR: We will take our next question from Kili Bahili Zvoga (ph). 

Q: Thank you, Ambassador.  

Following up on an earlier question, Congress has threatened to withhold aid to the Palestinian Authority should it seek recognition as a full state at the—at the U.N., and also should it support the ICC’s investigation. What is the position of the administration on this, on the withholding of aid, should the ICC advance? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Look, Congress—we have three branches of government. And Congress has expressed its view on this, through resolutions as well as in public statements. We certainly would not want to be in a situation where we withhold aid, needed aid, from the Palestinian people. But we also are under the obligation to support whatever decisions that our Congress makes. So that’s all I can say on that at the moment. And I’m hoping that we’re not forced into facing that position at some point in the future.  

LABOTT: Thank you. Sir. 

Q: Thank you, Ambassador. Stefano Vaccara, La Voce New York Italpress. 

It’s a follow up of what Elise and others said about the reform. Just that the last day that the president of the General Assembly, Francis, was with us, with the journalists, he said—he said openly that he thinks that you, the P-5, are not serious about any reform. We believed—I believed him. Now you try to convince this audience and the world that you are serious this time. So can you say something more about this seriousness? And last thing is, if you— 

LABOTT: Let’s—we want to get to a lot of questions, so— 

Q: Yes. The last thing is, if you actually are serious with the reform, are you going to stay if Vice President Harris wins? Are you going to stay? (Laughter.) 

LABOTT: Love how you slipped that in there.  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: (Laughs.) We are serious about reform. And I know countries have questioned that commitment. I know that they have thrown all the P-5 into one pot together and think that we are thinking and working together to ensure that U.N. reform doesn’t happen. And that is not the case. I wouldn’t be here today, President Biden wouldn’t have made this announcement two years ago and the previous year. And we will continue to work on this until we—until we achieve some of the changes that we want to see achieved. And as for my future, right now we got four months to get through to the end of the year, when I will serve as the president of the Security Council for a fourth time, and that is all I’m focused on. 

LABOTT: That’s not a no though. (Laughter.) Nathan, in the back. 

Hello. Nathan Colvin, new Army fellow for this year here at the Council on Foreign Relations.  

I’m just wondering, with the violations of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine, are there viable pathways forward for nonproliferation still? Or is that an issue that just won’t be touched anytime soon? 

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I think it’s an issue that has to be dealt with. And we will continue to work to deal with it, despite the fact that it looks—it looks impossible. We have to. 

LABOTT: Unfortunately, we’re out of time. But I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you, are you going to be able to do this reform through gumbo diplomacy? (Laughter.) Tell us what gumbo diplomacy is.  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, it’s actually—it’s absolutely what I have been doing. It is sitting around the table engaging with people to talk through your differences. It’s not always about you’re coming together with people that you agree with. But if you’re able to sit around the table and talk through your differences, and walk away from that table feeling that you have been heard, you’ve been respected, and that we can find a path forward, then you’ve achieved your goal. And that’s what gumbo diplomacy is about for me, it’s about people sitting around the table.  

I talk about gumbo, but I do more than just gumbo. But it’s sitting around the table, having good food—and this is not something that is—that I discovered or I made up. Every single one of you do it. You know that when you’re sitting around the table having a good meal, having a good conversation, you can come to some agreements and some commonalities. And that’s what gumbo diplomacy is to me. 

LABOTT: Well, Ambassador, I can’t thank you enough for joining us today. Thank you all here and online. (Applause.) A reminder—a reminder, this recording will be on the CFR website. And we hope you’ll join us for UNGA week. We’ll be having a lot of world leaders and interesting people.  

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you.  

(END) 

This is an uncorrected transcript.