21 January 2026

Chapter 7:   DECISIONS AND DOCUMENTS

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

Assembly President’s letter sets advisory deadline of 1 April for nominating SG candidates

On 14 January 2026, the General Assembly President sent a letter informing all UN Member States and Permanent Observers that she would “convene webcast interactive dialogues with the candidates for the position of Secretary-General in the week of 20 April 2026.” In her letter, the Assembly President specified that during these dialogues, “each candidate will be given the opportunity to present her or his vision statement and Member States will be able to ask questions and interact with the candidates.” She noted that further information on the dialogues would be published in due course. In a parallel statement issued the same day, the Assembly President affirmed, inter alia, that the interactive dialogues

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“represent a cornerstone of our commitment to transparency, inclusivity, and accountability throughout the selection and appointment process. . . . This process is our chance to send a clear message about who we are and what we stand for – an organization that truly serves all of humanity, half of whom are women, and that is ready to confront pressing global challenges, from conflict and climate change, to inequality and digital revolution.”  

While this letter, and the approximate dates for the interactive dialogues, had been anticipated, the letter also contained one unprecedented element. The Assembly’s 2025 Revitalization” resolution 79/327,[1] as well as the Joint Letter[2] signed on 25 November 2025 by the Assembly and Security Council Presidents, had established the main parameters for the 2026 Secretary-General appointment process. Yet neither of these heavily negotiated documents had included a deadline for the submission of nominations. This was despite strong advocacy by a number of Member States, which had offered proposals ranging from April to early June of the appointment year. But in the end, the resolution included no provision regarding the timing for submitting nominations, while the Joint Letter merely contained the general affirmation that

“Early presentation of candidates will help the organization of informal interactive dialogues in the General Assembly and the deliberations of the Security Council; nonetheless, that should not preclude others making themselves known throughout the process, as appropriate”.

Thus, in her January 2026 letter, the Assembly President forged new ground when she wrote that candidacy nominations “should be submitted . . . no later than 1 April 2026”. The President set out this indicative deadline while noting that it was “notwithstanding the Joint Letter”. Her letter’s rationale for setting out a deadline was that it would “help the organization of interactive dialogues in the General Assembly with all candidates”. The Assembly President may have been prompted, at least in part, to establish this deadline because during the previous competitive Secretary-General appointment process of 2016, only seven of the eventual thirteen candidates had been officially nominated by 1 April. Of those who were nominated after 1 April, three were still in time to participate in interactive Assembly dialogues that month, but three were not.

It should be noted that a nomination deadline was not included in the Assembly’s 2025 resolution because the practice is that Revitalization resolutions need to be adopted by consensus. And similarly, a specific nomination deadline was not part of the Joint Letter because Security Council Presidents sign letters in their presidential capacity (acting under the Council’s Rule 19) only with the consensus of all fifteen Council members. This stems from the fact that each Security Council member serves as Council President merely through a technical, alphabetical rotation. This consensus requirement gives each Council member – whether permanent or elected – the equivalent of a veto over the contents of any presidential letter.

In contrast, because Assembly Presidents are elected by the UN membership, GA Presidents are entitled to sign letters upon their own authority. Nonetheless, under the Charter, any decisions by either the Assembly itself, or by its President, relating to the functioning of the Security Council are in the nature of recommendations which are not binding upon the Council. Accordingly, the indicative deadline set out in the Assembly President’s letter would not pose a legal inhibition preventing the Council from considering candidates nominated after 1 April. And in fact, this right to consider later candidates is expressly acknowleged in the Joint Letter which, as noted above, underscores that “early presentation of candidates . . . should not preclude others making themselves known throughout the process, as appropriate”.

Such a decision might be taken in the event Council members became deadlocked over the main frontrunners and consequently would want to consider additional candidates. This, in fact, occurred in some past appointment processes, notably in the case of the UN’s second Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, who was not in the original pool of nominees.[3]

Specific mention of a role for civil society in the Assembly’s interactive dialogues is a second element introduced in the Assembly President’s January 2026 letter. Such a role, despite some proposals, had not been provided for in either the Revitalization resolution or the Joint Letter. In contrast, in her January 2026 letter, the Assembly President stated that

“In line with General Assembly resolutions on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly I encourage the continuation of the engagement of civil society in the interactive dialogues.”[4]

The wording of this sentence may be somewhat misleading, because in its Revitalization resolutions, up to now the General Assembly has reaffirmed, only in a general way,

“the importance and benefit of continuing interaction between the General Assembly and . . . civil society, where appropriate, and encourages the exploration of appropriate actions or measures, while fully respecting the intergovernmental nature of the Assembly, in conformity with its relevant rules of procedure”.

None of these resolutions has provided for a role of civil society in the Secretary-General appointment process specifically. However, civil society questioners were included in the Assembly’s 2016 interactive dialogues with candidates, as provided for by the then Assembly President in his letter dated 29 March 2016. Accordingly, there is a precedent for the present Assembly President to organize civil society participation in the 2026 interactive dialogues, notwithstanding the absence of a formal provision for this in the 2025 resolution.

As regards the qualifications of candidates, in her January 2026 letter, the Assembly President recalls “that General Assembly resolution 79/327 and the Joint Letter encourage Member States to strongly consider nominating women as candidates.”[5] Her letter does not reprise the reference in the resolution or the Joint Letter to geographical considerations. The resolution had reaffirmed  

“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”. (emphasis added)

For its part, the Joint Letter had noted “the importance of regional diversity in the selection of Secretaries-General”.[6] 

Background on the new appointment process as it has evolved since 2015

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, which 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 that served as President during a critical month of the process thereafter put into writing public 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, co-facilitated by Romania and South Africa. This newest resolution established the broad timeline for starting and completing the 2026 process and, together with the Joint Letter, carries forward the core procedures initially 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. Nomination procedures

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

Notwithstanding earlier proposals in the General Assembly, and in the context of the Joint Letter, for setting a specific deadline for the submission of nominations, ultimately neither document did so. Rather, the Joint Letter affirmed more generally that

“Early presentation of candidates will help the organization of informal interactive dialogues in the General Assembly and the deliberations of the Security Council; nonetheless, that should not preclude others making themselves known throughout the process, as appropriate”.

As detailed above, the Assembly President, in her January 2026 letter, has now set an advisory deadline of 1 April. It remains to be seen whether all nominations will be received by that date, or if other nominations will be put forward subsequently.

2. Qualifications of candidates

Chapter XV of the UN 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 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”. To these qualities, the Joint Letter adds the desirability of nominees possessing “proven leadership and managerial abilities, extensive experience in international relations and strong diplomatic, communication and multilingual skills”.

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”. (emphasis added)

Both the resolution and the letter note “with regret that no woman has ever held the position of Secretary-General”. And these documents each encourage Member States “to strongly consider nominating women as candidates”.

The Joint Letter additionally notes “the importance of regional diversity in the selection of Secretaries-General”. The practice of regional rotation of the post, which had been evidenced in the appointment of Secretaries-General since 1981, was disrupted in 2016. That year, António Guterres became the fourth incumbent from the UN regional group of Western European and Other States, whereas the Eastern Europe and the Latin American and Caribbean UN regional groups had each contended that their regions were next in line.

It appears that for 2026, there is a general concept that regional rotation should be taken into consideration, but not be the decisive factor. In particular, this has been definitively enunciated more than once by the United States. For example, 24 October 2025, an American representative stated

“We believe the process for selection of such an important position should be purely merit-based with as wide a pool of candidates as possible. With this in mind, the United States invites candidates from all regional groupings.” (S/PV.10024)

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3. Disclosing funding sources

A step not required in 2016 has been codified by the 2025 resolution, and reinforced by the Joint Letter, whereby each candidate should disclose their sources of funding “at the time of nomination”. However, neither document makes provision for such disclosures to 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

Both the resolution and the Joint Letter state 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 a number of nominated candidates continued actively to serve in UN positions.

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

As mentioned above, the Assembly President’s January 2026 letter has now established that the individual interactive dialogues with each nominee will take place during the week of 20 April 2026. Moreover, the resolution, Joint Letter, and the Assembly President’s letter all confirm the practice, launched in 2015, that candidates should provide a vision statement at the time of nomination, which each will then have the opportunity to present at the individually convened Assembly interactive dialogues. As previously noted, whereas the resolution and Joint Letter are silent with regard to civil society participation in the interactive dialogues, the Assembly President, in her January letter, encourages “the continuation of the engagement of civil society in the interactive dialogues”.

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. In more definitive language, in their Joint Letter the two Presidents commit that they “will” maintain and update this webpage (emphases added).

The General Assembly President, in her January 2026 letter, draws attention to the coverage of this webpage, and underlines that it “will be regularly updated”. Maintaining this webpage, which was initiated for the 2015-2016 process, will continue to be an important resource not only for the UN Members making the appointment decision, but also because of anticipated widespread public interest.

7. Withdrawal of candidates

The resolution and Joint Letter confirm 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 which existed during the 2016 process, when it was not clear whether a parallel announcement of withdrawal by the candidate himself or herself was also required.

8. Beginning and ending timeframe for the appointment process

The resolution established 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. Some Member States had supported issuing the joint letter as early as September, but this idea did not gain enough traction to be included in the resolution. Nonetheless, the 2025 Joint Letter was signed on 25 November, several weeks earlier than the Joint Letter sent in 2015, dated 15 December.

The swearing in of each new incumbent customarily takes place shortly after the Security Council forwards its recommendation to the Assembly, and the Assembly has in turn taken its decision. While some UN Members had hoped for an earlier timeframe, the resolution provides that this should take place during the last quarter of the year before the new term-in-office begins. The Joint Letter is even more general on this point, stating that  

“The Council plans to make its recommendation to the General Assembly in a timely manner so that the appointment by the Assembly allows the newly appointed Secretary-General sufficient time to prepare for the job.” (emphasis added)

Nonetheless, in light of the fact that the prior two competitive appointment processes of 2006 and 2016 were each completed within the first half of October, it appears possible that the 2026 appointment might also be finalized well in advance of year’s end.

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. The following month, 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. While the Assembly President forwarded this letter to all UN Member States and Permanent Observers, it was not published.

Ambassador Bessho recommends that the Security Council should in future decide on its basic principles and rules for its part in the appointment process far 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. Owing possibly in part to the Security Council’s delay in 2026 in appointing the bureaux of its subsidiary bodies, the Council has not yet decided upon its appointment modalities.

For reference, Somalia has been serving as Security Council President for January 2026. Subsequent Council presidencies will be the United Kingdom in February, the United States in March, Bahrain in April, China in May, Colombia in June, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in July 2026.

11. Dialogues of candidates with Security Council members

In 2016, in addition to the interactive dialogues convened in the Assembly with nominated candidates, the Council held informal meetings with each individual candidate privately at the Permanent Missions of successive Council Presidents. Once the holding of these informal meetings became 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, again with an announcement by the Council President 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.  Timing of balloting in the Security Council

While otherwise the Joint Letter refrained from making firm commitments relating to the Security Council’s part of the appointment process, both Presidents agreed in the letter on the timing for the start of balloting in the Council. The letter states that the informal Assembly dialogues with candidates

 “can be held before the Council begins its selection by the end of July 2026 and may continue throughout the process of selection”. (emphasis added)

This reference to the end of July, which is identical to the timing set out in the 2015 Joint Letter, thus in effect determines the timeframe for the start of the Council’s straw polls process. And in fact, during the 2016 appointment process, the Council conformed to the start date set out in the 2015 Joint Letter by conducting its first round of straw polls on 21 July 2016.[7]

Some, including Ambassador Bessho, recommended beginning the straw polls one month earlier, in June. While agreeing an earlier start date in writing did not gain traction, the Council could itself decide later to advance its polling, depending on the number of candidates and how quickly each participates in the Assembly dialogues.  

13. Means of balloting in the Security Council

The Security 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 Council. In practice, so long as the Council officially votes 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);[8]

• 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” or “discourages”, or withhold comment, before publishing the official recommendation as a Council resolution (1981-1986);

• Conducting straw polls with all candidates listed on a single ballot, on which each Council member could indicate “encourages” or “discourages”, or withhold comment, 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 (1991-2001);

• Conducting straw polls with all candidates listed on a single ballot, on which each Council member could indicate “encourages”, “discourages”, or “no opinion”, 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 (2006-2011); and

• Conducting straw polls using a separate ballot for each candidate, on which each Council member could indicate “encourages”, “discourages”, or “no opinion”, 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 (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 the candidates listed together. Showing only one candidate per ballot prevented such speculation, 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 the 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 again to 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 poll: 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.

14. 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 poll to the General Assembly President, and also make a public announcement for the benefit of the wider UN membership, the candidates, the press and the interested public.

As mentioned earlier, for the Security Council President to act under Rule 19 officially on behalf of the Council requires the consensus of all fifteen members, and so the reservation of the one Council member meant that the 2016 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 objecting Council member in 2016 contended that 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 – as well as the UN membership, press and civil society – 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 

“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 would prevent mistaken reporting by the media, which did occur once in 2016.

15. Monthly progress meetings of the two Presidents

In the context of the closer cooperation established in 2015-2016 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.

16. 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.

However, it is believed unlikely in 2026 that the Council will formally decide on a system to eliminate underperforming candidates as the polls progress.

​17. 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.[9]

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”. In total, nine terms of office were decided by the General Assembly without a duration having been included in the Council’s recommendation resolution. However, from 1976 forward, the Security Council’s resolutions have consistently specified the dates for which the Council’s recommendation is valid. And these terms of office specified by the Council have then been replicated in the Assembly’s decision.

​18.  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.

Some commentators have 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. This, however, is a misreading of this 1950 case. 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 actually 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 a mere 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 phrase 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.

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

The 2025 resolution makes provision for responding to “an unforeseen interruption in the term of office of the Secretary-General”, a possibility which previously had never been formally 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

By announcing that the General Assembly’s interactive dialogues with each candidate will be held the week of 20 April, the Assembly President’s letter of January 2026 takes an important forward step in advancing this year’s Secretary-General appointment process. In this, and in other of its contents, the Assembly President’s letter builds upon the considerable milestones of the 2025 “Revitalization” resolution and the Joint Letter. By her letter, it appears also that the Assembly President has sought to move beyond the relative conservatism of the resolution and Joint Letter by setting out a nomination deadline and by announcing a role for civil society in the Assembly’s interactive dialogues.

Nonetheless, as noted above, the Assembly President’s statement that all nominations “should” be submitted “no later than 1 April 2026” is, under the Charter, a recommendation not binding on the Security Council. While it is certainly possible that all nominations will be received by then, the fact that the deadline set by the Assembly President is not binding leaves open the contingency that Council members could consider later candidates depending on circumstances. It is to be noted that at present, only one candidate has been officially nominated, and one other mentioned by his government in writing.[10] This is somewhat comparable to the same time period in 2016, when only three of the ultimately thirteen candidates had been officially nominated by the end of January.

The General Assembly’s procedures for 2026 are now relatively well-defined. The only other major task remaining for the Assembly President will be formulating precise guidelines for the conduct of the interactive dialogues with each candidate, which she is expected to circulate closer to the time of those dialogues. Still outstanding for the Security Council, however, is the need to agree on the parameters for its 2026 informal polling process. This ideally would be decided upon before the 20 April start of the Assembly dialogues, but in actuality could be determined anytime between now and the Council’s commitment, set out in the Joint Letter, to begin its selection process “by the end of July 2026”.

Overall, 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 will be grounded on genuine cooperation between the Assembly and the Council, and with the maximum possible inclusivity, transparency and commitment. And most importantly, it is also hoped that the same candidate who appears most qualified to the General Assembly members will be the candidate ultimately recommended by the Security Council.

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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] For details about the resolution, see related article on this website.

​[2] For details about the Joint Letter, see related article on this website.

[3] See Brian Urquhart, Hammarskjöld, London, Bodley Head, 1972, pp. 11-12.

[4] This sentence was also included in the Assembly President’s statement issued the same day as her letter.

[5] This sentence was also included in the Assembly President’s statement issued the same day as her letter.

[6] See section 2 below, and also the related article on this website.

[7] The final, and decisive, sixth straw poll was held on 5 October 2016.

[8] The only time during the 1946-1962 period 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).

[9] See S/PV.617, 31 March 1953.

[10] On 26 November 2025, Argentina nominated, through a published letter, its national Rafael Mariano Grossi. On 25 April 2025, Bolivia wrote a letter (not published as an official UN document) to all UN Permanent Missions and Observers informing them that it was would be nominating its national David Choquehuanca Céspedes.