The UN is facing a crisis of trust and possible bankruptcy. Its new leader will have an enormous challenge

HJBC/Getty Images The United Nations is deep into the process of looking for its next Secretary General as Portugal’s Antonio Guterres steps down in December after a decade.

The leadership change comes as the 81-year-old organisation faces many serious challenges.

Who will step in and tackle them with the skills and courage they demand remains an open question.

There is no legislated date for UN member countries to decide on the new Secretary General; it depends on when the Security Council agrees on its preferred candidate.

Ultimately, the decision has to be made before December 31.

Turbulent times at the UN The campaign to take over from Guterres is unfolding against the background of a crisis of trust in the international system generally, and in the UN in particular.

International cooperation between some countries is in the process of unravelling.

Many are turning away from international dialogue, despite cyclical conflict in hot spots in Africa and the Middle East continuing, and global threats like climate change, health pandemics and competition in newly contested areas like the Arctic, cyberspace, outer space and the oceans.

The UN reports many countries are alarmingly disrespecting international law and withdrawing from international treaties.

The rules of war are being shredded by combatants with virtually no accountability in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere .

Beset by faltering economies, growing social welfare costs, rising military expenditures and right-wing populism, countries are defending their sovereignty against what they see as the threat of invasive multilateral bodies.

The United States has been a particularly staunch critic.

According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio : “the post-war global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us”.

President Donald Trump said the UN’s response to global conflicts is little more than to “write a really strongly worded letter, and then never follow that letter up”.