As the foreign minister of South Korea, he was able to travel to all the countries on the United Nations Security Council, a manoeuvre that subsequently turned him into the campaign's front-runner.

[4] In 2016, Foreign Policy named Ban one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for his achievement of helping the Paris Agreement to be ratified and enforced less than a year after it was adopted.

On 20 February 2018, Ban was unanimously elected as the President of the Assembly and Chair of the Council by all members of the Assembly and Council, respectively, the two governance organs of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization dedicated to supporting and promoting environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive economic growth in developing countries and emerging economies.

[14] He became the first major international diplomat to throw his weight behind the Green New Deal, a nascent effort by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the United States to zero out planet-warming emissions and end poverty over the next decade.

In 1962, Ban won an essay contest sponsored by the Red Cross and earned a trip to the United States where he lived in San Francisco with a host family for several months.

[29] Ban was appointed Ambassador to Austria and Slovenia in 1998, and a year later he was also elected as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom).

[26] In September 2005, as foreign minister, he played a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to adopt the Joint Statement on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue at the fourth round of the Six-party talks held in Beijing.

[32] Ban was viewed as a stark contrast from Kofi Annan, who was considered charismatic, but perceived as a weak manager because of problems surrounding the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq.

[46] In the final informal poll on 2 October, Ban received fourteen favourable votes and one abstention ("no opinion") from the fifteen members of the Security Council.

After the vote, Shashi Tharoor, who finished second, withdrew his candidacy[47] and China's Permanent Representative to the UN told reporters that "it is quite clear from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly".

[30] When Ban became secretary-general, The Economist listed the major challenges facing him in 2007: "rising nuclear demons in Iran and North Korea, a haemorrhaging wound in Darfur, unending violence in the Middle East, looming environmental disaster, escalating international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the spread of HIV/AIDS.

[50] Before starting, Kofi Annan shared the story that when the first Secretary-General Trygve Lie left office, he told his successor, Dag Hammarskjöld, "You are about to take over the most impossible job on earth".

At his first encounter with the press as Secretary-General on 2 January 2007, he refused to condemn the death penalty imposed on Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi High Tribunal, remarking, "The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member State to decide".

[52] He quickly clarified his stance in the case of Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, two top officials who were convicted of the deaths of 148 Shia Muslims in the Iraqi village of Dujail in the 1980s.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia-tribunal, which was established by both the United Nations and Cambodia and which became operational in 2006[citation needed], is responsible for prosecuting the aforementioned senior leaders.

As his Deputy Secretary-General, he selected Tanzanian foreign minister and professor Asha-Rose Migiro, a move that pleased African diplomats who had concerns about losing power without Annan in office.

Though not appointed by Ban, the president of the General Assembly, Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, is only the third woman to hold this position in United Nations history.

Ban stated, "For my generation, coming of age at the height of the Cold War, fear of nuclear winter seemed the leading existential threat on the horizon.

He kept silent over the request of Shirin Ebadi to visit[79] Iran after the crackdown on peaceful post-election protests by the Iranian police, which was perceived as a crime against humanity.

However, he conceded that if then-leader Muammar Gaddafi refused to abide by a cease fire agreement, the international coalition of military forces would have no choice but to intervene to protect the human rights of Libyans.

[84] Ban took the first foreign trip of his term to attend the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January 2007 as part of an effort to reach out to the Group of 77.

[68] Ban played a large role, with several face-to-face meetings with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in convincing Sudan to allow UN peacekeepers to enter the Darfur region.

[85] Ban Ki-moon flew to Myanmar on 25 May 2008 to guide a conference with international agencies aimed at boosting donations for the nation, which was struck by Cyclone Nargis on 2 May 2008.

[95] Throughout 2012, Ban expressed his concern about the continuing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, in particular the condition of the Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli prisons[96] and the movement restrictions imposed on Gaza Strip residents.

Ban Ki-moon said that "as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism".

[104] He later admitted that Saudi Arabia threatened to cut Palestinian aid and funds to other UN programs if coalition was not removed from blacklist for killing children in Yemen.

According to one source, there was also a threat of "clerics in Riyadh meeting to issue a fatwa against the UN, declaring it anti-Muslim, which would mean no contacts of OIC members, no relations, contributions, support, to any UN projects, programs".

[115] Ahlenius claimed that the Secretary-General made efforts to undermine the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) mandate and challenge its operational independence.

In relation to another case, Ban was admonished by Judge Michael Adams for "willful disobedience" for again refusing to hand over key documents in an internal promotions dispute.

Kim Jong-pil, former Prime Minister of South Korea, was reported to say that Ban Ki-moon would announce his candidacy for the presidency shortly after his term as Secretary-General ended.