The third public debate with UN Secretary-General candidates took place at the Graduate Center on July 13, 2015–in partnership with UNA-UK and Global Citizen–and welcomed three of the candidates vying for the UN’s top job:

• Christiana Figueres – Former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, nominated by Costa Rica
• Vuk Jeremić – former President of the UN General Assembly and former Foreign Minister of Serbia
• Danilo Türk – Chair of the Global Fairness Initiative and former President of Slovenia

Candidates were quizzed by the moderators Thomas G. Weiss, FUNDS co-Director and Presidential Professor of Political Science at The Graduate Center, and Barbara Croisette, UN correspondent for The Nation and previously the New York Times. A range of challenging questions–many selected from among over 30,000 submitted by Global Citizens–were posed to the candidates, covering issues including forced migration, gender parity in senior UN appointments, dealing with abuses by UN peacekeepers, conflict resolution, climate change, UN reform–and what they have ever done to irritate the permanent Members of the Security Council!

The audience of 500 included representatives of member states, UN staffers, students and the general public. The event was live-streamed and can now be watched in full here.