How is the Secretary-General appointed?
The Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council. The Secretary-General’s selection is therefore subject to the veto of any of the five permanent members of the Council. The first two Secretaries-General were Trygve Lie of Norway and Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden. In the past 40 years, countries have informally agreed to rotate the office among the regional groups. It has thus passed from Asia (U Thant of Burma, now Myanmar), to Western Europe (Kurt Waldheim of Austria), to Latin America (Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru), to Africa (Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, who served one term, and Kofi Annan of Ghana, the current Secretary-General). Although there is technically no limit to the number of five-year terms a Secretary-General may serve, none so far has held office for more than two terms.
