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New Zealand was first elected to the Council in October 1953 for a two-year term beginning in January 1954. At this time, the Security Council consisted of only 11 members, five of whom were permanent and six elected. New Zealand was elected by the General Assembly as the candidate from the Commonwealth group, which was then recognised formally as an electoral group for United Nations offices.
In New Zealand’s first Council term the principal issues arising involved the Middle East, Indochina, Guatemala, the Off-shore Islands in the Taiwan Straits, and the admission of new member states.
New Zealand also served on the United Nations Disarmament Commission, which then consisted of Security Council members plus Canada. New Zealand’s representative on the Council for the two-year term, 1954-55, was Leslie Munro (later Sir Leslie Munro).
New Zealand was again elected to the Security Council in 1965 to serve a one year term in 1966. The one-year term resulted from the decision to introduce four new seats to the Council. In order to maintain the system of rotation under which half the elected members retired each year, it was decided that two of the new seats would be for standard two-year terms, while the other two would be for shorter one-year terms. This would ensure that five of the ten elected members would continue to retire each year.
As the highest polling candidates in the 1965 election, Japan and Nigeria secured the two-year terms, leaving New Zealand and Uganda to serve for only one year. New Zealand had sought election in 1965 in order to establish at once the claims of the “Other States” in the new created “Western European and Other States Group” (WEOG) to an appropriate share in the agreed nominations for the two seats the group had now been allocated.
Our most recent term on the Security Council was in 1993-94. Our contribution over this time was made in a very different international atmosphere from that in which the Council operated in 1954-55 and 1966. Since 1966 the Cold War had come to an end. In 1971 the People’s Republic of China had taken over the Chinese seat on the Council. During the eighties and early nineties fundamental internal changes had occurred in the Soviet Union, and in 1991 the seat it had occupied was taken over by the Russian Federation.
With the easing of the East-West confrontation that had dominated the Council’s proceedings since 1946, major changes could be seen in the Council’s approach to issues and its methods of work. While the permanent members retained their right of veto, in practice it was rarely exercised. The Council was enabled to engage in actions to restore and keep the peace that in earlier decades never would have got off the ground. During New Zealand’s third term the Council was performing something like the role envisaged for it by the founders of the organization.
