Results of the elections to the UN Human Rights Council

Since the founding of the UN Human Rights Council in 2006, some of the council members have been elected by the UN General Assembly every year .

The 47 seats are distributed over five regions : 13 seats each for Africa and Asia, 6 for Eastern Europe, 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean and 7 for Western Europe and the remaining countries. In the first election, the states were elected for one, two or three years, so that around a third of the members can be re-elected annually. In order to be elected, a state must submit an official declaration of candidacy before the election and then collect the majority of the votes cast in the election . In the first three elections, some votes were cast for countries that had not officially declared a candidacy; hereinafter referred to as unofficial candidates. Members may be re-elected directly once, otherwise only after a period of absence in the council.

The results of the UN Human Rights Council elections , broken down by region, are presented as follows:

an overview of how many seats are to be filled, the number of official and unofficial candidates
the candidates with the election results achieved and a reference to (direct) re-election and the number of ballots.

Map of the regional groups:

Africa

Asia

Eastern Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

Western Europe and the rest of the countries

UN member, in no group

not a UN member or a member's territory

First election on May 9, 2006

On May 9, 2006, at the 60th session of the UN General Assembly, the members of the UN Human Rights Council were elected. Except for the Africa region, there were more candidates than seats in each region. During the election, votes were cast for countries that were not on the official candidate lists.

Africa region

Overview
Seats	official candidates	unofficial candidates
13	13	4th

official candidates
1 year		2 years		3 years
Algeria Algeria	168	Gabon Gabon	175	Djibouti Djibouti	172
Morocco Morocco	178	Ghana Ghana	183	Cameroon Cameroon	171
South Africa South Africa	179	Mali Mali	178	Mauritius Mauritius	178
Tunisia Tunisia	171	Zambia Zambia	182	Nigeria Nigeria	169
				Senegal Senegal	181

Unofficial candidates
- Egypt Egypt - 1 vote
- Kenya Kenya - 9 votes
- Madagascar Madagascar - 1 vote
- Tanzania Tanzania - 1 vote

Asia region

Overview
Seats	official candidates	unofficial candidates
13	18th	2

official candidates
1 year		2 years		3 years		not elected
Bahrain Bahrain	134	Japan Japan	158	Bangladesh Bangladesh	160	Iraq Iraq	52
India India	173	Pakistan Pakistan	149	China People's Republic People's Republic of China	146	Iran Iran	58
Indonesia Indonesia	165	Sri Lanka Sri Lanka	123	Jordan Jordan	137	Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan	88
Philippines Philippines	136	Korea South South Korea	148	Malaysia Malaysia	158	Lebanon Lebanon	112
				Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia	126	Thailand Thailand	120

Unofficial candidates
- Maldives Maldives - 1 vote
- Qatar Qatar - 1 vote

Eastern Europe region

Overview
Seats	official candidates	unofficial candidates
6th	13	1

official candidates
1 year		2 years		3 years		not elected
Poland Poland	108	Romania Romania	89/95/98	Azerbaijan Azerbaijan	95/103	Albania Albania	31
Czech Republic Czech Republic	105	Ukraine Ukraine	91/109	Russia Russia	137	Armenia Armenia	70
						Georgia Georgia	35
						Latvia Latvia	50
						Lithuania Lithuania	92/86
						Slovenia Slovenia	91/88/80
						Hungary Hungary	79/48

Unofficial candidates
- Serbia and Montenegro Serbia and Montenegro - 1 vote

Caribbean and Latin America region

Overview
Seats	official candidates	unofficial candidates
8th	10	3

official candidates
1 year		2 years		3 years		not elected
Argentina Argentina	158	Brazil Brazil	165	Cuba Cuba	135	Nicaragua Nicaragua	119
Ecuador Ecuador	128	Guatemala Guatemala	142	Mexico Mexico	154	Venezuela Venezuela	101
		Peru Peru	145	Uruguay Uruguay	142

Unofficial candidates
- Costa Rica Costa Rica - 6 votes
- Honduras Honduras - 3 votes
- Colombia Colombia - 1 vote

Western Europe region and other countries

Overview
Seats	official candidates	unofficial candidates
7th	9	1

official candidates
1 year		2 years		3 years		not elected
Finland Finland	133	France France	150	Germany Germany	154	Greece Greece	117
Netherlands Netherlands	137	United Kingdom United Kingdom	148	Canada Canada	130	Portugal Portugal	122
				Switzerland Switzerland	140

Unofficial candidates
- Spain Spain - 1 vote

Second election on May 17, 2007

On May 17, 2007, during the 61st session of the UN General Assembly, the successors of the states whose one-year membership had expired were elected. The elected remain in the council for three years. Four new members were appointed for the regions of Africa and Asia, and two each for the other three regions. There was a second ballot in the regions of Eastern Europe and Western Europe and the rest of the countries. As in the first election, votes were again cast for states that were not on the official candidate list.