Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Latvia are as of today new non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with a two-year mandate.
The new non-permanent members of the UN Security Council join Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, Panama and Somalia, which have been non-permanent members of the UN Security Council since January 1 last year.
The UN Security Council has 15 members, five of which are permanent with veto power - France, Great Britain, the United States of America (USA), China and Russia, and ten are elected for a period of two years, but with five members being replaced each year.
Non-permanent members are elected on a regional basis.
In odd-numbered years, one country each from Africa, Asia and Latin America and two from the group of Western countries enter the UN Security Council, and in even years two countries from Africa and one each from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. An even year is the beginning of the mandate for the Arab member.
Of the new non-permanent members, Colombia has the most experience, as this is its eighth time joining the UN Security Council, the Democratic Republic of Congo's third time, Bahrain and Liberia's second, while Latvia has never been a member of the UN Security Council before.
The world record holder is Japan, which has been elected to the UN Security Council 11 times, while more than a third of UN member states have never been represented on the UN Security Council. Among them are Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia.
The SFR Yugoslavia was a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council four times, and since its dissolution, the members of that body as independent states have been Slovenia (1998-1999 and 2004-2206), Croatia (2008-2009) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010-2011).
The two-year terms of the representatives of Algeria, Guyana, South Korea, Sierra Leone and Slovenia ended on December 31, 2025.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
