The mood in New York’s Turtle Bay was buoyant in October 2016. The Security Council had just announced its backing for Antonio Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister who ran the United Nations refugee agency for a decade, to serve as UN Secretary-General from January 2017.
It was a rare moment of unity between the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council, known as the P5, who are normally riven by divisions over Syria and Ukraine, and it was a move broadly welcomed by the wider UN membership.
