Talk:List of members of the United Nations Security Council

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry articles

WikiProject Countries to-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Check out the article alerts; see if anything catches your fancy.
Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries
Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stubs by region.
Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess.

International relations: United Nations Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject International relations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of International relations on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.International relationsWikipedia:WikiProject International relationsTemplate:WikiProject International relationsInternational relations articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject United Nations.

Lists High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Untitled

Furthermore, the table is wrong - it lists each year they were in the council. However, countries are elected to two-year terms. --Golbez 02:04, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

A half is elected each year. Maybe you could do a:

2004-2005: Country1, Country2, etc.
2003-2004: CountryX, CountryY, etc.

--Cantus 03:10, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

I meant the table at the bottom; Brazil is listed as being in 18 times, which is true - 18 years means elected 9 times, though. --Golbez 04:35, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

Israel has never been elected? It is a small country, but its population is larger than that of some other countries on the list, including Lebanon, Guinea-Bissau, Gabon, Mauritania, Bahrain, and Djibouti.

Israel was never elected to the council, perhaps because of its regional grouping. Dave 22:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Lichtenstein is not listed. Are they a member of the UN?

Yes, but it was never elected to the council. Dave 22:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Formatted Table

It'd be a good idea to have a formatted table to show the country's time they were elected. It'd also solve the aforementionned problem. Whatdy'all think? Dandin1 21:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC) Example:[reply]

2006	Argentina	Republic of the Congo	Denmark	Ghana	Greece	Japan	Peru	Qatar	Slovakia	Tanzania
2005		Algeria		Benin			Brazil	Philippines	Romania
2004	Angola		Chile		Germany	Pakistan				Spain
2003		Bulgaria		Cameroon			Guinea	Syria
2002	Colombia		Ireland		Mauritius	Norway			Singapore
2001		Bangladesh		Jamaica			Mali	Tunisia		Ukraine
2000	Argentina		Canada		Malaysia	Namibia			Netherlands		Slovenia
1999		Bahrain		Brazil			Gabon	Gambia
1998	Costa Rica		Japan		Kenya	Portugal			Republic of Korea		Sweden

I agree, this is a better way to show the elected members. Dave 22:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite a nifty table, but from 1982 onwards the last two columns have been accidentally switched. Is there an easy way to repair this? Classical geographer (talk) 14:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was surprisingly easy to fix, just undoing the vandalism of the last edit (removing Ireland?) fixed it again. --23230 ^talk 17:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Classical geographer (talk) 09:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Improving the page

I'm thinking about changing the format of the list into a tabular form. I created as a first sketch this:

1946
Australia	Brazil	Egypt	Mexico	Netherlands	Poland
1947
Australia	Belgium	Brazil	Colombia	Poland	Syria
1948
Australia	Belgium	Brazil	Colombia	Syria	Ukraine
1949
Argentina	Canada	Cuba	Egypt	Norway	Ukraine
1950
Cuba	Ecuador	Egypt	India	Norway	Yugoslavia
1951
Brazil	Ecuador	India	Netherlands	Turkey	Yugoslavia
1952
Brazil	Chile	Greece	Netherlands	Pakistan	Turkey
1953
Chile	Colombia	Denmark	Greece	Lebanon	Pakistan
1954
Brazil	Colombia	Denmark	Lebanon	New Zealand	Turkey
1955
Belgium	Brazil	Iran	New Zealand	Peru	Turkey

Few question:

Should the first row be the current SC or the first one?
Which format should I choose to represent countries and flags? Using the Template:Flagicon or the templates in Wikipedia:Country referencing templates? Thank you. CG 15:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sumatra

On the map, Sumatra is coloured as if it is either independent from Indonesia, or perhaps the author mistakenly thought it was part of Malaysia. Either way it needs to be fixed, I'd do it myself but I'm not an expert on images wikipedia-wise. Perhaps someone more experienced could complete the necessary adjustments. Basser g 20:13, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Flags?

Would people support the use of flag templates on this article? doktorb _words^deeds 16:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: Heh, whoops. Didn't see the table above =/ I think it looks alright, as it goes doktorb _words^deeds 16:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Table

I formatted User:Cedar-Guardian's table for all the years and added which seat the countries took. Unless anyone has any objections, I will replace the current list with it: User:Martin23230/UNSCtable

Martin23230 20:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added it. I hope you like it. Martin23230 19:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

Good link with information on this: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/membship/electind.htm —Nightstallion 15:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

germany

why does germany include west but not east germany's tally? perhaps because the capital was Bonn initially?

In that case Yugoslavia should count for Serbia (with notes on the side), and Czech Rep should get Czechoslovakia's for Prague, amongst others?

Some terrible inconsistencies here. Lihaas (talk) 00:26, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are right about Germany and West Germany, so I split them up. However, this does move Germany much further down the table.--23230 ^talk 14:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Federal Republic of Germany (there never was any such country as West Germany officially) existed before 1990, and exists today. It absorbed the territory that contained the no longer existent country of the Democratic Republic of Germany (popularly, but unofficially, known as East Germany), but remains the same country. When Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia ceased to exist, new (or at least restituted) countries took over their territories. The location of the capitals are irrelevant: caital cities are not members of the UN. Kevin McE (talk) 17:18, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Number of years: 0

Why are countries with 0 years in the UNSC not in the table?Mátyás (talk) 10:05, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

??? Why on earth would a "List of members of the United Nations Security Council" have a load of countries listed that have never been members of the United Nations Security Council? Kevin McE (talk) 17:03, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice to know exactly which countries never were in the UNSC, like Israel, for instance. If you think they don't belong on that specific list, a different one could be made with the countries that were left out. It is relevant info, in my opinion, but it doesn't deserve a page of its own, so it should be here.--Mátyás (talk) 09:49, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If a country is not on the list of countries that have been members, they have never been members: it's as simple as that. To my mind, your proposal is equivalent to appending a list of all the teams that have ever been in the Japanese second division without winning it to this list. The UNSC list is sortable, and so if one wanted to see quickly whether Israel, or any other UN member, has been a UNSC member, they simply need to click on the top of the "Country" column, and sscan down the list until the find the nation of interest to them. However, if you really think that the article would genuinely benefit from an addition, the Wikipedia way is to add it yourself, not bemoan the fact that no-one else has done so. Kevin McE (talk) 16:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a table, you can take a look at User:Mátyás#Table. I have been searching at the UN home site for elections data, but no such luck, for now I only have the data for 2006-9, for only those are processed on Wikipedia for now. If nobody objects, I will put the Table on this page.--Mátyás (talk) 12:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not keen personally, and would like to see more people involved in the discussion. But:

Noting former colonial status would need to be more specific as to date: we cannot state was a colony of the United Kingdom during its time on the UNSC, because the UK's time on the UNSC continues to date, and will do for many years, but the colonial relationship does not.
I'm not sure what the situation was vis-a-vis the Soviet Republics and UN membership: I presume that Ukraine and Belarus SSRs must have been members to be eligible to have been elected to the UNSC, but you have listed the other former SSRs as only becoming members post-independence.
Regional grouping should be by current groupings, not those relating back to the era of a commonwealth seat: if the groups that a country formerly belonged to is to be recorded, the info should be complete for all UN members, not only those that have never managed to secure a seat.
The same equitability principle would apply to date of membership and founder member status, and number of unsuccessful .
1946 November 19 is not a standard date format in any form of English, nor does it work for sorting: this could be solved by using <span style="display:none">1946-11-19</span> November 19 1946

I commend you entirely on the effort and research: I wouldn't delete it, but if it came to a !vote, I would be inclined to be against. Kevin McE (talk) 20:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. A from-to formed date will be added to the colonial status

2. Take a look at United_Nations_member_states#USSR

3. It is according to current groupings, the only countries in the Commonwealth Seat are Tanganyika and Zanzibar, for those were the current regional groups in their time. They are color-coded as former members.

5. I shall change the date to the day-month-year format, but as for sorting, it sorts alphanumerically, not by date, so I used a special sorting code, as used on United Nations member states--Mátyás (talk) 11:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

After thinking on it a bit, I shall stay with the current date format, see Calendar_date#Big_endian_forms.2C_starting_with_the_year--Mátyás (talk) 12:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As to the date, because the UN is based in New York, I would suggest date should be displayed in the month day year format: the suggestion I make above makes that sortable chronologically. BUT I would maintain that it is illogical that an article entitled List of members of the United Nations Security Council should give more information about countries that have never been members of that council than those that have. Kevin McE (talk) 17:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I told you that I am using a special code for the sorting of dates (see the code), so it makes no difference, what format are the dates themselves given. Now, on the asymmetrical nature of the two tables: ex-colonial info can be added to the members table, and a total number of candidacies, which gives the relative success coefficient. Just, where does one find the data for the UNSC elections? I tried the UN sites, but it's just too huge for me to navigate with any success.--Mátyás (talk) 09:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It does make a difference, because information in wikipedia articles should be presented in accordance with the relevant part of wikipedia's style guide, in this case WP:Date. I have no idea where you would find info on older election results I'm afraid. Kevin McE (talk) 17:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dam it, I will have to rewrite all those dates... Dam!--Mátyás (talk) 11:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moved the table to a subpage: User:Mátyás/Table--Mátyás (talk) 12:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Non-members

As I finally finished all the details with the dates, I decided to add this list to the article. The only country I could not figure out whose colony it practically was and from when till when, is Papua New Guinea, so if someone could figure it out, please correct it according to the "from-to" form used. Another problem is that my sole source for the list was non other than Wikipedia. I tried to find the UNSC elections data on the UN sites, but failed, so the table is mostly blank considering that aspect, but I hope that can be helped in the near future. And as for the question of importance and notability - Israel and Saudi Arabia are some nice examples of countries that have been UN members for some time, are "relevant", but have never been on the UNSC.--Mátyás (talk) 11:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS: There should be a total of 192 currently existing countries on the two lists (members and non-members) together, but I always get lost in the counting... Could someone validate or disprove this somehow? Or is there a reliable method for such counting?--Mátyás (talk) 12:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Countries in the lists

To make things clear: the lists in this article should not contain any countries that are not UN members or haven't been historical UN members. As we cannot know about any future UN members, let us go with the current state of affairs, OK?--Mátyás (talk) 08:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Status of article?

I note that the Polish equivalent of this article is now raised to FA status. I don't read Polish, but it looks as though it has little if anything, other than a nice 2005 photo, that this does not have. It appears to be recently started, with a translation of this. So, is this good enough to submit for ranking, or are the expected standards not as high on pl.wiki? Kevin McE (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When to update

The 2009 elections have passed, the new elected members are known. However, I see no change in the tables - are we waiting for New Years day for the new elected members to claim their seats? Or is it just a slow day?--Mátyás (talk) 10:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which table? The one headed Elections by year has been updated, because the elections are a historical fact. The one entitled By number of years as Security Council member should not be updated before 1 Jan, because the newly elected nations have not increased their number of years on the SC "including current year where relevant" yet. Your baby, the Non members table, should also remain as it is until the new year, because B&H is still not, as of today, a country that has been a member of the SC. Kevin McE (talk) 18:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You do make sense. Then until New Years'...--Mátyás (talk) 16:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No Arab for 1967?

The table has no Arab country in the UNSC for 1967. First I thought it was an error, but the source gives the same. Seems the system was quite new (being established in 1966), and the UN wasn't consistent on the issue. Or? It is an anomaly, in any case...--Mátyás (talk) 08:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New edits to Non-members table

Kevin, why remove the dates of admission to the UN? And founder status? That way you could sort the countries to see who's been outside the UNSC the longest. Otherwise I agree with your edits.--Mátyás (talk) 16:03, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ever since that list was in your sandbox I have been saying that it is unreasonable, bearing in mind the title of the article, to provide more detail on those nations that have never been members of the UNSC than those that have. If Guatamala is elected at the end of next year, we would have the daft situation of presenting less info about the country in 2012 than we do now. That is untenable, as I explained 18 months ago. Kevin McE (talk) 18:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We could add admission dates to the members list. But then it would be rather cluttered... damn. Guess you are right. That would be just too much detail for this article. Info like that should go into each specific countries "Country and the UN" article.--Mátyás (talk) 19:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New Source

http://www.unelections.org/?q=node/33

Actually says that being a small country is a negative factor when considering candidates, etc. Should be included and processed.--Mátyás (talk) 09:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Greece planning ahead

http://www.greeceun.org/greeceun/content/Folder.aspx?d=3&rd=-1&f=1326&rf=840755231&m=-1&rm=0&l=1

Yes, Greece wants a seat on the UNSC in 2025-26... so I don't know where to put that info, if anyplace, should it be put somewhere in the election articles or put it here in the Future Candidacies section or what. Thoughts? --Mátyás (talk) 09:20, 15 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just put it here then.--Mátyás (talk) 12:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Map

The map under the current members table seems to indicate that both PRC and ROC are members. 198.151.130.131 (talk) 22:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it indicates that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China. This is the position of the UN. --... there's more than what can be linked. 10:16, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Future members in Membership by year section

Those countries that are to take their place on the SC on 2012 should not, I would contend, be shown on the list of members by year. At present, they are not members, and anyone looking at the table without paying proper attention to the years column could be mislead in that regard. We already have them indicated clearly elsewhere on the article as elected to be on the council from January. Logical consistency would require that, if we are going to post what we know about next year's membership of the council, we should also post what we know about 2013's composition. But I don't think we should be doing either. Kevin McE (talk) 12:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By Years table not sorting

This table does not sort, even though it is set to be a sortable table. Any ideas how to fix this problem? --... there's more than what can be linked. 15:46, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done Kevin McE (talk) 00:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Number of times elected

Can we have a table for that? –H T D 06:36, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free. Kevin McE (talk) 09:34, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong map (2015 composition)

Lithuania should be in green on the firs map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.85.84.115 (talk) 17:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC) the probleme arises from the map used for "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_election,_2014". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.85.84.115 (talk) 17:04, 2 January 2015 (UTC) Plus, from the UN's point of view, Taiwan is part of the PRC and the map should reflect that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.85.84.115 (talk) 17:15, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on List of members of the United Nations Security Council. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090406073932/http://www.seebiz.eu:80/hr/politika/tadic-kandidovacemo-se-za-poziciju-u-savetu-bezbednosti,27750.html to http://www.seebiz.eu/hr/politika/tadic-kandidovacemo-se-za-poziciju-u-savetu-bezbednosti,27750.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Y An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 11:56, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

France

I don't see the point of saying that France replaced the French Fourth Republic.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:27, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Regional Groups" section map legend discrepancy

The map legend on this page and the legend on the page for the image itself are in disagreement, including different explanations for same item and items present only on one:

Color	Image legend	Article legend
	The African Group	African Group
	The Asian Group	Asia-Pacific Group
	The Eastern European Group	Eastern European Group
	The Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC)	Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
	The Western European and Others Group (WEOG)	Western European and Others Group
	UN member not in any voting group	UN member not in any voting group
	Observer states	-
	Disputed territory	Non-UN state or territory

The main difference is the lack of observer states for bright green in the article legend (they are marked on the image) and "disputed" vs "non-UN" for grey. While the Observers are obviously just omitted, I cannot verify which of the Disputed/Non-UN interpretations is the correct one. MreeBiPolar (talk) 14:59, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the Western Sahara is the only territory coloured grey, both of these labels are accurate. The official UN position is that the Western Sahara is a non self-governing territory under Spanish administration, making it non-UN territory. On the other hand, both Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic claim the entirety of the territory, so the disputed label works just as well. Sir Sputnik (talk) 15:15, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on List of members of the United Nations Security Council. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:17, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1948-49 Ukraine

Question: Why was Ukraine in the Eastern Europe seat from 1948-1949? It was a S.S.R at the time, not an independent nation. RedRiver660 (talk) 22:52, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why there is an explanatory note in the list of members. Same thing applied to Byelorussian SSR in '74-5. They were UN members in their own right. Kevin McE (talk) 09:43, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Current membership

Just to clarify, should the newly elected, not yet serving non-permanent members be included in the current membership section, or should a separate section be added to accommodate them? Klohinx (talk) 06:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, those who are not current members should not be listed as current members. What will happen in the future should be in a section about future members. Kevin McE (talk) 21:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese Membership in Membership by Year Ambiguous naming

In the "Chinese Seat" column of the "Permanent" table in the "Membership by Year" section of the article, the ROC is split into two different periods because of the fact they moved from being the sovergein nation in Mainland China to the one known as Taiwan. Even though this is historically correct, this should probably be clarified by adding "Taiwan" after "ROC" in the second period, no? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sir Patoot (talk • contribs) 10:07, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Name of the Soviet Union

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics changed to Soviet Union? Gdagys (talk) 09:17, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]