2016 United Nations Security Council Election
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The 2016 United Nations Security Council election was held on 28 June during the 70th session of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
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, held at
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in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The elections were for five non-permanent seats on the
UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and ...
for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 2017. In accordance with the Security Council's rotation rules, whereby the ten non-permanent UNSC seats rotate among the various regional blocs into which UN member states traditionally divide themselves for voting and representation purposes, the five available seats were allocated as follows: *One for
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
*One for the
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
- Pacific Group *One for
Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
and the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
*Two for the
Western European and Others Group The Group of Western European and Other States, also known as the Western European and Other States Group or WEOG, is one of the five United Nations regional groups and is composed of 28 Member States mainly from Western Europe, but also from ...
The five members will serve on the Security Council for the 2017–18 period. This was the first time a Security Council election was held in the month of June. On 18 September 2014, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/307 to push the elections back to six months prior to the beginning of the newly elected Council members' terms. Moreover, this was the first election of
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
to the Council.


Candidates


African Group

* * — Withdrew in January 2016 at the
African Union The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the Africa ...
summit in favour of Ethiopia. * — Withdrew on 16 January 2016 in favour of Ethiopia.


Asia-Pacific Group

* *


Latin American and Caribbean Group

*


Western European and Others Group

* * *


Support

William Courtney, the former U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan, said that "based on the solid successes of Kazakhstan to establish CICA, Chairmanship of the OSCE and the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...
, Kazakhstan, like no other country, deserves special trust and is a suitable candidate for a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council."


Public debate

In May 2016, the
World Federation of United Nations Associations The World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) (French: ''Fédération Mondiale des Associations pour les Nations Unies'', FMANU) was founded in 1946 as a Federation of national associations. Its objectives are to promote the values o ...
hosted the first open debates for UN Member States competing for a seat as a non-permanent member to the Security Council. All five contenders participated in the debate.


Result


African and Asia-Pacific Groups

Kazakhstan became the first Central Asian country to sit on the UNSC.


Latin American and Caribbean Group


Western European and Other Group


Day 1

Following five rounds of inconclusive voting,
Bert Koenders Albert Gerard "Bert" Koenders (; born 28 May 1958) is a Dutch politician of the Labour Party (PvdA) who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2017. He is currently a professor at Leiden University and a special envoy of the World Ban ...
and
Paolo Gentiloni Paolo Gentiloni Silveri (; born 22 November 1954) is an Italian politician who has served as European Commissioner for Economy in the von der Leyen Commission since 1 December 2019. He previously served as prime minister of Italy from December ...
, Foreign Ministers of the Netherlands and Italy respectively, announced a proposal whereby the Netherlands and Italy would split the two-year term with each country serving one year. Such arrangements were relatively common in deadlocked elections starting in the late 1950s until 1966, when the Security Council was enlarged. This however would be the first time in over five decades that two members agreed to split a term; intractable deadlocks have instead usually been resolved by the candidate countries withdrawing in favor of a third member state.


Day 2


See also

* List of members of the United Nations Security Council *
European Union and the United Nations The European Union (EU) has had permanent observer status at the United Nations (UN) since 1974, and has had enhanced participation rights since 2011. The EU itself does not have voting rights but it is represented alongside its 27 members, on ...


References


External links


Kazakhstan UNSC Campaign website
{{DEFAULTSORT:United Nations Security Council election, 2016 2016 elections
2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
Non-partisan elections June 2016 events