Chapter 7:   DECISIONS AND DOCUMENTS

Section 5q:   Decisions to recommend appointments of Secretaries-General

 

GA’s 2025 “Revitalization” resolution advances process for appointing next Secretary-General

 

Resolution 79/327 on “Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly”, adopted by the Assembly on 5 September 2025, officially sets in motion the appointment of the United Nations’ tenth Secretary-General. The 2026 appointment will be the second competitive process since new modalities for selecting Secretaries-General were developed in 2015-2016, culminating in naming António Guterres to his first term of office.

 

The foundation of the selection process is Article 97 of the UN Charter. This article provides that “The Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”

 

For decades, Security Council members deliberated over candidates without the engagement of the wider UN membership, and without transparency until the moment the Council officially announced its recommendation. Then, in 2015, a new era began with the adoption of General Assembly resolution 69/321, which established a more cooperative and coordinated process between the Assembly and the Council, and one having greater transparency.

 

In a later letter, the then outgoing Assembly President, Mogens Lykketoft, summarized the innovations introduced during the 2015-2016 process, both those set out in resolution 69/321 and those subsequently agreed:

 

• The monthly “coordination meetings” held between the Assembly President and successive Council Presidents starting in September 2015;

 

• The Assembly President’s briefing to the Security Council at its open debate on working methods in October 2015;

 

• The letter signed jointly by the Presidents of both organs in December 2015, which formally solicited candidates;

 

• The invitation to candidates to provide vision statements;

 

• The informal General Assembly dialogues with each candidate;

 

• Involvement of civil society, including through questions conveyed to the candidates at the Assembly’s informal dialogues; and

 

• The global town hall meeting the Assembly President organized in partnership with Al-Jazeera.

 

For its part, the Security Council has never adopted any formal document codifying its internal practices relating to the Council’s role in the appointment process. Rather, twice an individual Council member which served as President during a critical month of the process thereafter put into writing guidelines to aid in future appointment processes. The first of these was the “Wisnumurti Guidelines” prepared by the Indonesian representative of that name to record the procedures used in 1996. Following completion of the 2016 appointment process, the representative of Japan, Koro Bessho, wrote, in his national capacity, a letter in which he detailed the “achievements and lessons learned” during the Council’s part of the process. He crafted his letter from the vantage point of having served as Security Council President in July 2016, which was the month when the Council began its private “straw poll” balloting to measure the support for candidates.

 

The above documents, as well as the Assembly’s interim “Revitalization” resolutions, were in the background during the negotiations on the 2025 “Revitalization” resolution, which were co-facilitated by Romania and South Africa. This newest resolution establishes the broad timeline for starting and completing the 2026 process and carries forward the core procedures agreed for the 2015-2016 process, while also introducing several important innovations.

 

What follows is a discussion of the modalities agreed so far, as well as a description of the additional decisions which eventually will need to be taken as part of the 2026 appointment process:[1]

 

1. Nomination procedures

 

The 2025 “Revitalization” resolution confirms an earlier decision by the Assembly that to be considered, each candidate must be nominated by at least one UN Member State. This decision closes a loophole that existed in the 2016 process, when there was uncertainty as to whether a candidate could be self-nominated. The resolution also confirms that each Member State may nominate only one candidate. However, if that candidate is subsequently withdrawn, the Member may nominate another candidate.

 

There had been earlier discussion as to whether it would be advisable to establish a deadline for the submission of nominations, with proposals ranging from April to early June of the appointment year, although with earlier nominations encouraged. Ultimately, it was decided not to include such a deadline in the 2025 “Revitalization” resolution. Nonetheless, in the discussions surrounding adoption of this resolution, hope was expressed that nominations would be made early so as to allow sufficient time for the Assembly’s informal dialogues with all candidates to be completed before the start of the Council’s straw polls.

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It would still be possible to set out a nomination deadline in the joint letter to be signed by the General Assembly and Security Council Presidents by the end of 2025. In such case, the two principal organs might still wish to provide for a contingency procedure allowing the acceptance of additional nominations in the event the Security Council became deadlocked over the main frontrunners and would like to consider other candidates.

 

2. Qualifications of candidates

 

Chapter XV of the Charter on “The Secretariat” sets out no qualifications specifically for the position of Secretary-General. That Chapter does, however, in its Article 101(3), which refers generally to Secretariat staff, give “paramount” importance to securing “the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity”, with “due regard" paid to recruiting staff “on as wide a geographical basis as possible”.

 

Drawing on this language, paragraph 40 of the 2025 “Revitalization” resolution underlines the importance for candidates “to embody the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity”, and adds the qualification of “a firm commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter.

 

In addition, in its paragraph 41, the resolution reaffirms provisions in previous resolutions  

 

“on continued efforts towards achieving equal and fair distribution in terms of the gender and geographical balance with regard to appointments of executive heads of the Organization, including the Secretary-General, while meeting the highest possible standards”. (our emphasis)

 

And in paragraph 42(c), the resolution, “noting with regret that no woman has ever held the position of Secretary-General, encourages Member States to strongly consider nominating women as candidates”.

 

3. Disclosing funding sources

 

A step not required in 2016 has now been codified by the resolution whereby each candidate should disclose their sources of funding “at the time of nomination”. There is, however, no provision that such disclosure should be updated as the process advances. This leaves open the possibility that significant unreported financial contributions could be received by candidates after their nomination is effected.

 

4. Work suspension by UN officials who are nominated

 

The “Revitalization” resolution states that candidates “holding positions in the United Nations system” should consider suspending their UN work during the campaign, so as to avoid “any conflict of interest that may arise from their functions and adjacent advantages”. Such a provision was not in effect with respect to the 2016 appointment process, during which some candidates continued to actively serve in UN positions.

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5) Vision statements and webcast Assembly interactive dialogues with each candidate

 

The 2025 “Revitalization” resolution confirms the practice launched in 2015 that candidates should provide a vision statement at the time of nomination, and that each will then have the opportunity to present their statement at an individually convened General Assembly interactive dialogue.

 

6. Appointment webpage

 

The “Revitalization” resolution confirms that the Assembly and Council Presidents “should jointly maintain and regularly update” a dedicated UN webpage setting out the list of candidates, together with their nominating State(s), vision statement, curriculum vitae and campaign financing disclosures. Maintenance of this webpage, initiated for the 2015-2016 process, will continue to be important not only for the UN Members making the appointment decision, but also because of anticipated widespread public interest.

 

7. Withdrawal of candidates

 

The new “Revitalization” resolution confirms that for a candidacy to be withdrawn, it will be sufficient for the nominating Member to so inform the Assembly and Council Presidents. This resolves an area of confusion that existed during the 2016 process, when it was not clear whether a parallel announcement of withdrawal by the candidate himself or herself was also needed.

 

8. The beginning and ending timeframe for the appointment process

 

The 2025 “Revitalization” resolution establishes the “bookends” for the 2026 appointment process in that it sets out the timeframe for the official launch of the process, as well as for the ultimate swearing-in of the new appointee. Paragraph 42(a) states that “The selection process should be formally initiated in the last quarter of the year preceding the end of the incumbent’s term through a joint letter” of the Assembly and Council Presidents. It adds that nominations of candidates would be expected thereafter.[2] Some Member States had supported issuing the joint letter earlier, in September, but this idea did not gain sufficient traction. For reference, the joint letter sent in 2015 was dated 15 December.

 

Similarly, while some UN Members had hoped for an earlier swearing-in, the “Revitalization” resolution provides that this should take place during the last quarter of the year before the new term-in-office begins. Nonetheless, it is possible that the appointment could be finalized well in advance of the end of 2026. The prior two competitive appointment processes, in 2006 and in 2016, were each completed within the first half of October.

 

9) Joint letter by the Assembly and Council Presidents to initiate the 2026 appointment / Start date for balloting in the Security Council

 

One factor which may impact the timing of the joint letter, mentioned above, is that whenever the Council President signs a letter on behalf of all Council members (acting under the Council’s Rule 19), that letter must be agreed by full consensus.[3] For this reason, agreeing the joint letter to be sent in 2025 is likely to require more extensive negotiation in the Security Council than in the General Assembly. The Assembly President is entitled to sign the letter upon her own authority, in view of the fact that Assembly Presidents are elected, whereas members assume the Council presidency merely as the result of a fixed rotation.

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For reference, the Security Council presidencies during the last quarter of 2025 will be the Russian Federation in October, Sierra Leone in November, and Slovenia in December.

 

The 2015 joint letter was relatively short and generally descriptive of the relevant modalities already set out in the Assembly’s 2015 “Revitalization” resolution. The letter did, however, add to the qualifications contained in that resolution by also mentioning the attributes of "proven leadership and managerial abilities, extensive experience in international relations and strong diplomatic, communication and multilingual skills". Moreover, the 2015 joint letter mentioned that the informal Assembly dialogues with candidates

 

 “can be held before the Council begins its selection by the end of July 2016 and may continue throughout the process of selection” (our emphasis).

 

This reference to the Security Council beginning “its selection” in effect set out July 2016 as the timeframe for the start of the Council’s straw poll process. And in fact, the first round of straw polls took place on 21 July 2016.[4]

 

It is therefore possible that the 2025 joint letter may also mention a target date for starting the straw balloting in the Council. Some, including Ambassador Bessho in his 2017 letter, recommended beginning the straw polls in June, one month earlier than in 2016. However, it remains to be seen a) whether an earlier start date gains traction and b) if so, whether it would be mentioned in the 2025 joint letter or simply left for the Council to decide.

 

10) Target date for a Council decision on basic principles and rules for its process

 

In 2016, a first statement detailing some aspects of the process the Security Council intended to follow was not made until May, by the then Council President, Egypt, at the Security Council stakeout. In June 2016, the Council presidency of France sent a letter informing the General Assembly President of the date and modalities by which the Council would begin its straw poll process. The Assembly President forwarded this letter to all Member States and Permanent Observers, but it was not published.

 

Ambassador Bessho recommends that the Security Council should decide on its basic principles and rules for its part in the appointment at a date earlier than in 2016. He suggests that by 31 January of each appointment year, the Security Council President should send a letter to the Assembly President setting out the Council’s modalities. For reference, Somalia will hold the Security Council presidency in January 2026.

  

11. Dialogues of candidates with Security Council members

 

In addition to the informal dialogues convened in the Assembly with nominated candidates, in 2016 the Council members held “informal meetings” with each individual candidate privately at the Permanent Missions of successive Council Presidents. Once the holding of these informal meetings had become regularized, Security Council members agreed that the Council President would announce when each meeting had taken place. It is likely that such informal meetings will also be held in 2026, with an announcement by the Council President made after each.

 

In addition to these “informal meetings” with the Security Council members as a group, in 2016 candidates also traveled to the capitals of Council members. It is important to note that such visits were not organized by the Security Council as a whole, but rather were arranged bilaterally.

 

12. Means of balloting in the Security Council

 

The Council’s Rule 48 states that “Any recommendation to the General Assembly regarding the appointment of the Secretary-General shall be discussed and decided at a private meeting” of the Security Council. In practice, so long as the Council votes officially on its recommendation resolution in a formal private meeting, it has been considered acceptable for the informal balloting by means of straw polls to take place in informal meetings.

 

Over its history, the Security Council has employed several options for sounding out the level of support for each candidate. In chronological order of their use, these have been:

 

• Conducting each round of balloting through voting on an actual draft decision, but with the official recommendation published not as a Council resolution, but as a communiqué issued pursuant to the Council’s Rule 55 (1946-1962);[5]

 

• Conducting each round of balloting through voting on actual draft resolutions, and with the official recommendation published as a Council resolution (1966-1976);

 

• Conducting straw polls with all candidates listed on a single ballot and using white ballots which did not differentiate between elected and permanent members and by which each Council member could indicate “encourages”, “discourages” or no comment, before publishing the official recommendation as a Council resolution (1981-1986);

 

• Conducting straw polls with all candidates listed on a single ballot and initially using white ballots for all Council members and then at some point introducing red ballots for permanent members, before publishing the official recommendation as a Council resolution (1991-2011); and

 

• Conducting straw polls with a separate ballot for each candidate, before publishing the official recommendation as a Council resolution (2016 to present).

 

In 2016, the reason for no longer listing all candidates on a single straw poll ballot was that in the past, amateur detectives among the Council members had sometimes guessed which ballot was submitted by a certain member based on the overall pattern of voting on all candidates listed together. Showing only one candidate per ballot prevented such speculations, but also meant that each round of straw polls took more time. (As another measure to prevent determining which representative has cast which vote, it has long been the practice for Security Council members to be provided with identical pens for filling out their ballots.)

 

For the 2026 process, Security Council members will have before them the question of whether to use colour-coded ballots at any point in the voting process – to foreshadow whether one or more vetoes might eventually be cast – or whether to use only white ballots for both elected and permanent members throughout. This decision, however, does not need to be made at the outset of the straw poll process, but can be taken after one or more polls have been held.

 

Should members decide to again employ colour-coded ballots, they will need to determine at what point in the process to introduce them. In the two most recent competitive appointment processes, colour-coding was introduced at what turned out to be the final straw polls: the fourth ballot in 2006 and the sixth ballot in 2016.

 

Beyond the polling modalities used by Council members in the past, it is possible that alternative methods might be considered for 2026.

 

13. Announcing the results of each round of balloting

 

Since straw polls were first employed in 1981, the Security Council has never engaged in a practice of officially announcing the results after each round. For 2016, all but one Council member supported having the Council President formally communicate the results of each straw polling to the General Assembly President and also make a public announcement for the benefit of the wider UN membership, the press and the interested public.

 

As mentioned earlier, for the Security Council President to act under Rule 19 on behalf of the Council requires the consensus of all fifteen members, and so the reservation of the one Council member meant that straw poll outcomes could not be officially announced. The issue was revisited several times during the polling process, but consensus still was not reached.

 

The “Bessho letter” mentions two arguments which were made by the dissenting Council member. The first relates to the fact that since 1966, the Security Council’s recommendation to the General Assembly has been decided in the format of a Council resolution. In that light, the Council member contended, the straw polls were an internal process, in nature like the negotiating process for any Council resolution, during which interim updates are never officially disclosed by the Council. A second argument was that announcing the results of straw polls might hurt the dignity of low-polling candidates, or those encountering significant opposition, and make it difficult for them to leave the process with honour.

 

Had the straw poll results remained undisclosed in 2016, one or both of those arguments might have held validity. But in actuality, the results of the straw polls were leaked immediately after each session. Thus, the Assembly President and the candidates did learn of each outcome, but not through the agency of the Security Council. Arguably, it was worse for candidates to find out in such a backhanded way that they had polled poorly than had they been informed in a more official, dignified way by the Council itself. In 2016, then Assembly President Lykketoft wrote that “It is neither respectful of the rest of the membership of the United Nations nor fair to the candidates themselves, for the results to be communicated through leaks from Council members to the world’s media.”

 

Another argument in favour of the Council officially announcing the results of each straw poll is that this also would prevent mistaken reporting by the media, which did occur once in 2016.

 

14. Monthly progress meetings of the two Presidents

 

In the context of the closer cooperation established in 2015 and 2016 for the appointment process, the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council began holding monthly meetings to monitor progress. These meetings were widely felt to be helpful, and it is expected that the practice will continue in 2026.

 

15. Narrowing the field of candidates

 

In 2016, only three of the thirteen nominees withdrew their candidacies while balloting was still underway in the Security Council. The other ten, including those who repeatedly received feeble support, chose to remain in the race. In his letter, Ambassador Bessho indicates that continued balloting on such a large number of candidates had a negative impact on effectiveness. Accordingly, he suggests it might be useful to introduce conditions for automatically eliminating candidates who underperform in the balloting process. He offers several options:

 

• allowing only candidates obtaining a minimum number of positive votes to proceed to the next round;

 

• disqualifying candidates who receive a certain number of negative votes; or

 

• limiting the number of candidates who may be retained from one round to the next.

 

While General Assembly members may have views on this question, and the Assembly itself may offer proposals, it is the probable interpretation – under the broad terms of Article 97 and in light of past practice – that a decision to eliminate underperforming candidates as the polls progress would lie with the Security Council itself.

 

​16. Format and contents of the Council’s recommendation to the Assembly​

 

It is sometimes believed that the Security Council’s recommendation to the General Assembly requires the consensus of all fifteen Council members, but this is not the case. Like any other substantive decision reached by the Security Council through official voting, the Council’s recommendation comes under Article 27(3) of the Charter and thus requires only a minimum of nine affirmative votes, with no negative vote by any permanent member. And in fact, in the 1953 recommendation that Dag Hammarskjöld be appointed to his first term, one Council member, the Republic of China, abstained.[6]

 

Since 1976, the Security Council has standardized the language of its recommendation to the General Assembly. As set out most recently, the operative paragraph of resolution 2580 (2021) reads:

 

“Recommends to the General Assembly that Mr. António Guterres be appointed Secretary-General of the United Nations for a [second] term of office from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2026.”

 

The Charter itself is silent as to the duration of the term in office of the Secretary-General. General Assembly resolution 11(I) of 1946 provided that “The first Secretary-General shall be appointed for five years, the appointment being open at the end of that period for a further five-year term.” It is indicative of the practice during the Organization’s earliest years that Security Council resolution 168 (1961) – by which the Council recommended that U Thant be appointed to fill the “unexpired portion” of Dag Hammarskjöld’s term of office – twice referred to Hammarskjöld’s term as having been “fixed by the General Assembly”.

 

But while the span of the initial nine terms of office was decided by the General Assembly without a duration having been included in the Council’s recommendation resolution, from 1976 forward, the Council’s resolutions have consistently specified the dates for which the recommendation is valid. And these terms of office specified by the Council have then been replicated in the Assembly’s decision.

 

​17.  Does either the Council or the Assembly have “primacy” as to the appointment?​

 

In some recent discussions and literature, mention has been made that the General Assembly has “primacy” with respect to appointing the Secretary-General because under Article 97, the recommendation by the Security Council does not ultimate in the appointment of a candidate until the Assembly so decides. In this context, some have suggested that if the Council became blocked and thus unable to recommend a candidate to the Assembly by the time the present Secretary-General’s term expired, or if a majority of Assembly members did not accept the candidate recommended by the Council, the General Assembly could act on its own to appoint a Secretary-General.

 

It has been mentioned as a precedent that in 1950, when the Security Council was unable to agree on a candidate to follow Trygve Lie, the General Assembly acted alone to adopt resolution 492 (V) granting Lie a second term of three years. However, the Council’s original recommendation to the Assembly to appoint Lie had contained no mention of the length of the term of office for which the recommendation was valid. Thus, the Assembly members could hold that the Assembly, in extending Lie’s term, was in fact acting on the basis of a Council recommendation, albeit from an earlier time, and thus was in conformity with Article 97. A similar approach at present would not be possible because, as mentioned above, since 1976, Council resolutions have consistently specified the term in office for which the recommendation is valid.

 

Relevant to this discussion is the 1948 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on “Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership in the United Nations (Article 4 of the Charter)”. One question the Court was asked by the General Assembly was whether there were any circumstances in which the Assembly could admit a State to UN membership without a recommendation from the Council. The ICJ opined that under Article 4, the Council’s role in making a recommendation was not merely a formality, but a substantive legal requirement under the Charter.

 

It should be noted that the phrase at issue in Article 4 – that the Assembly decides “upon the recommendation of the Security Council” – is the identical phrase used by Article 97 on appointing the Secretary-General. It would be hard to argue that this provision would have a different interpretation in the context of Article 97 than the one given by the 1948 ICJ Advisory Opinion in connection with Article 4. Overall, it is clear that the drafters of Article 97 intentionally established a “dual key” process requiring action by both of the principal organs. While it is true that the process is sequential – with action first required by the Council and then by the Assembly – neither body can be dispensed with.

 

18. Contingencies if a Secretary-General cannot serve a full term

 

The 2025 “Revitalization” resolution makes provision for responding to “an unforeseen interruption in the term of office of the Secretary-General” – a possibility which previously had never formally been addressed. The resolution resolves this issue by providing that the Executive Office of the Secretary-General should give notice to the General Assembly and the Security Council, after which both bodies should

 

“convene without delay to initiate an expedited selection and appointment process in accordance with Article 97 of the Charter and the procedures set out in the present and previous resolutions”.

 

Concluding observations

 

The 2025 “Revitalization” resolution is an important milestone for both the Assembly and the Council in advancing the process for appointing the tenth UN Secretary-General. While the resolution’s provisions are more conservative than some Member States would have wanted,[1] it nonetheless adds some important new elements, such as the financial disclosure, and also provides greater exactitude on certain parts of the process, such as the procedure for withdrawing candidates. Moreover, the resolution seeks to preserve the gains in transparency achieved in 2016.

 

Creating a sound procedural framework for the appointment process is an important step, but the real test will come in the implementation of the process by both the General Assembly and the Security Council. For the credibility of the next incumbent, and for the UN itself, it is hoped that the 2026 proceedings be grounded on genuine cooperation between the Assembly and the Council, and with maximum transparency to the extent possible.

                                                                             

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On the question of regional rotation in appointing Secretaries-General, see the article on this website: "Appointing the next Secretary-General: The relevance of regional rotation".

 

See also Table 5 for the dates of the decisions by the Security Council and General Assembly on appointing Secretaries-General.

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(This article supplements pages 404 to 415 of the book.)

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[1] See a related article on this website for a summary of proposals not incorporated into the final version of the 2025 “Revitalization” resolution which would have given the Assembly a more activist role in the appointment process.

[2] One nomination has already been submitted prior to issuance of the 2025 joint letter. On 25 April 2025, Bolivia officially informed all UN Permanent Missions that it was nominating its national David Choquehuanca Céspedes.

[3] This was the case with respect to the 2015 letter.

[4] The final straw poll was held on 5 October 2016.

[5] The only time during those years that the Council adopted a resolution setting out its recommendation to the Assembly was in the unprecedented situation following the death of Dag Hammarskjöld, when the Council recommended the appointment of U Thant as Acting Secretary-General by resolution 168 (1961).

[6] Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, 1990.

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