Myths versus Reality

Mistakes about how the world selects temporary members of the UN Security Council permeate casual discussions of the institution. The public, by and large, simply misunderstands the process.

For example, we often hear that UNSC membership “rotates,” when, in fact, selection is by election. Some people believe the permanent members of the UNSC (the P5) have veto power over selections, when in fact, they have no such authority. There is also a misconception that regions select their representatives, when, in reality, they merely nominate candidates, and countries can also self-nominate without any regional endorsement. The final decision actually belongs to a two-thirds majority of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

Grains of truth may drive some of these misunderstandings. There exists no formal rule to rotate membership, for example, but each region has adopted – to varying extents – a norm of taking turns. Officially, the permanent members of the UNSC exert no privileged control over the ultimate selection of temporary members, but they may have enough informal influence to occasionally block truly distasteful candidates from winning. And while the final vote on UNSC members belongs to the UNGA, we observe multiple candidates really contesting elections less than 20 percent of the time. Typically, the regions dominate the process by nominating exactly one candidate per seat, leaving the UNGA to rubber-stamp the selection.