The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, lamented in remarks on Thursday that the United Nations, of which the IAEA is part, has been “absent” from the world’s greatest conflicts.
Grossi made the remarks during an event in London, within the context of his candidate to run the United Nations. The term of current Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expiring this year, prompting the somewhat convoluted and backdoor process of various successor candidates making their pitches to the body. First, the Security Council, the most powerful body of the U.N., nominates a candidate, whom the General Assembly then confirms. The United Nations has officially approved five candidates for secretary-general this year. Grossi’s closest competition is believed to be Michelle Bachelet, the socialist former president of Chile and apologist for the Uyghur genocide in China, along with Maria Fernanda Espinosa, the former president of the General Assembly.
Grossi has been on the front lines of two of the most high-profile conflicts in the world today: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the IAEA has advocated for the protection of various nuclear sites in the war theater; and the conflict between Iran and America. The IAEA, under Grossi’s leadership, condemned Iran for violating international law in 2025 for the first time in two decades, which led to the U.S. military taking action against three of Iran’s largest nuclear sites last year. Iran and America continue in conflict today under an ongoing ceasefire, and are reported to be negotiating a peace agreement that Washington insists must result in the long-term dissolution of any Iranian illicit nuclear development.
In his remarks on Thursday, Grossi mentioned these two conflicts, as well as ongoing civil war in Sudan and Israel’s conflicts with neighboring parties.
“Interstate war has returned after many years here in Europe but also in Africa and many other places,” he noted, according to the Emirati newspaper The National. “The UN is absent from the management or resolution of any of the conflicts I have just mentioned. It needn’t be so.”
“It’s not going to happen unless we do something differently,” he continued. “It is only going to happen when there is a conviction in leaders, in belligerent nations, that the participation of the U.N., and in particular the SG, is going to facilitate a better outcome than what they are having.”
Grossi added that he believed it was “possible” for the United Nations to be a relevant party in these conflicts because of his personal experience running the IAEA. He also reported lay the blame of the U.N.’s inability to act in a timely and impactful manner on the size of its bureaucracy, outsourcing jobs he said should belong to the secretary-general to a host of “special rapporteurs” and other officials. He suggested that he would shut down several special rapporteur offices if he was chosen to run the United Nations.
Hellbound and Down 