page_title: Secretary-General of the United Nations
section_title: Selection and term of office
hierarchical_section_title: Secretary-General of the United Nations / Selection and term of office
caption_attribution_description: English: UN Headquarters, New York City. The United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, USA., Manhattan.
context_page_description: The secretary-general of the United Nations is the head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The secretary-general serves as the chief administrative officer of the United Nations. The role of the United Nations Secretariat, and of the secretary-general in particular, is laid out by Chapter XV of the United Nations Charter.
  As of 2020, the secretary-general is former Prime Minister António Guterres of Portugal, appointed by the General Assembly on 13 October 2016.
context_section_description: The secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. As the recommendation must come from the Security Council, any of the five permanent members of the Council can veto a nomination. Most secretaries-general are compromise candidates from middle powers and have little prior fame.
  Unofficial qualifications for the job have been set by precedent in previous selections. The appointee may not be a citizen of any of the Security Council's five permanent members. The General Assembly resolution 51/241 in 1997 stated that, in the appointment of "the best candidate", due regard should be given to regional (continental) rotation of the appointee's national origin and to gender equality, although no woman has yet served as Secretary-General.
  The length of the term is discretionary, but all secretaries-general since 1971 have been appointed to five-year terms. Every secretary-general since 1961 has been re-selected for a second term, with the exception of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was vetoed by the United States in the 1996 selection. There is a term limit of two full terms, established when China cast a record 16 vetoes against Kurt Waldheim's third term in the 1981 selection. No secretary-general since 1981 has attempted to secure a third term.
  The selection process is opaque and is often compared to a papal conclave. Since 1981, the Security Council has voted in secret in a series of straw polls. The Security Council then submits the winning candidate to the General Assembly for ratification. No candidate has ever been rejected by the General Assembly. In 2016, the General Assembly and the Security Council sought nominations and conducted public debates for the first time. However, the Security Council voted in private and followed the same process as previous selections, leading the president of the General Assembly to complain that it "does not live up to the expectations of the membership and the new standard of openness and transparency".
caption: The Secretariat Building is a 154 m (505 ft) tall skyscraper and the centerpiece of the Headquarters of the United Nations
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix S3100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix S3100   Ver1.00", "Image DateTime": "2009:07:28 14:41:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "366", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Image SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1252", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9872", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/340", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Action", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:07:28 14:41:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:07:28 14:41:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "13/5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "42/5", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "951/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2996", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2996", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}