Membership (1946–1965)
The original UN Charter stated that the Economic and Social Council consisted of 18 seats.
De facto permanent
The UN General Assembly agreed in 1946 that the Security Council's permanent five should be given de facto permanent ECOSOC seats. The Republic of China kept its seat renewed until 1961, when it failed to get a two-thirds majority vote for re-election. [3]
To prevent the permanent members from occupying 5 out of 6 seats up for election in one year, the permanent five agreed to stagger their terms by English alphabetical order. The Republic of China and France received 3-year initial terms (renewed in 1949, 1952, etc.), the United Kingdom and Soviet Union received 2-year initial terms (renewed in 1948, 1951, etc.), and the United States received a 1-year initial term (renewed in 1947, 1950, etc.). [4]
| Year | De facto permanent seats | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946–1965 |  France |  Soviet Union |  United Kingdom |  United States |
Non-permanent
Unlike the Security Council, there was no specific agreement between the superpowers on how many ECOSOC seats would go to each of the then-informal United Nations Regional Groups. Instead, seat arrangements came from "unwritten rules" and "habits" that eventually stabilized into a pattern documented after the fact. For example: [3] [5]
- The first election, for the 1946 term, ended up electing three members from Eastern Europe. However, Yugoslavia and New Zealand had deadlocked on one of the seats until New Zealand withdrew. When Yugoslavia's term ended, New Zealand was elected in its place; that seat effectively became a Commonwealth seat going forward. Meanwhile, the 'original' Commonwealth seat that went to Canada in 1946 eventually became a Middle Eastern seat, so this change did not increase the number of Commonwealth seats long-term.
- One of the Western European seats went to a Scandinavian country and another to a Benelux country, with one exception per seat after the pattern broke.
- As candidates do not run for a specific seat, the arrangement of columns is slightly arbitrary. For example, at the end of 1952, the terms of Czechoslovakia, Pakistan, and Iran were ending, and the outgoing seats were contested by Czechoslovakia, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, India, and Turkey (the former two running for re-election). India and Turkey won election, causing the last seat to deadlock between Czechoslovakia, Pakistan, and Yugoslavia. After thirteen rounds, Yugoslavia finally obtained a two-thirds majority. Had Pakistan won re-election instead, the table may have ended up arranged so that India succeeded to Czechoslovakia's seat.
- Due to being a pattern instead of an agreement or rule, some deviations occurred without comment. For example, during the above 1952 deadlock, no member of the General Assembly (including the Soviet Union) made any complaint about the Soviet bloc being potentially deprived of a seat. (In contrast, the Soviet Union frequently made complaints as early as 1947 when the Eastern European seat on the Security Council threatened to go to a non-Soviet-aligned member.) In the table below, deviations from the pattern that were successfully elected are highlighted with a star. [3] [6] [7]
- ↑ Various nonstandard, inconsistent names, including also "Near and Middle East", were used before Africa and Asia became Regional Groups. Sources published after the introduction of the Regional Groups retroactively name this group "Asia-Africa" or similar, but this name was not used at the creation of ECOSOC. [8] [3] [5]
- ↑ In October 1947, India proposed the creation of a group named "Australasia and the Far East", which would match the third seat if including India and then-East Pakistan, but the proposal was not taken up. [3]
- ↑ Greece's seat has also been called a "Near East" seat, [8] which would make Spain the exception instead of Iran.
- ↑ Belgium was elected to receive a 3-year term starting in 1946. However, as Greece's 1-year term was ending, Turkey and the Netherlands deadlocked as successor candidates. The deadlock was resolved when Belgium agreed to give the remaining 2 years of its term to the Netherlands.
- ↑ Considered part of the Middle East due to being a member of the Arab League. [8]
The pattern broke at the end of 1960, after fifteen nations from Africa outside the Arab League joined the United Nations in the span of one month, increasing the number of nations in this unrepresented group from four to nineteen. [8] [3] The new members gave Africa, Asia, and Latin America together a commanding 66 out of 99 seats on the General Assembly. (Cyprus and Turkey caucused with Asia, while the Republic of China, Israel, and South Africa did not caucus with Asia or Africa. [8] [5] ) In the election for the 1961 term, the Republic of China (Taiwan) failed to obtain a two-thirds majority for re-election, while Ethiopia received a two-thirds majority. Belgium, the Republic of China, and India deadlocked on the Netherlands' outgoing seat for fourteen rounds, which was left vacant for over four months, well into the 1961 term. After negotiations, all three members withdrew in place of Italy, with an agreement that next year, Spain's outgoing seat would go to a candidate from either Africa or Asia. [3] This changed pattern would continue until 1965 when ECOSOC was expanded.
(Ten deadlocked rounds occurred on 9 December 1960, [9] and three more occurred on 20 December 1960. [10] A fourteenth round was scheduled for 13 April 1961, but was postponed by the President of the General Assembly with no objections while "the interested delegations and groups" negotiated. [11] The fourteenth round occurred on 18 April 1961, electing Italy. [12] )
