António Guterres

António Guterres

Portuguese statesman and secretary-general of the United Nations

Also known as: António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres

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Guterres, AntónioAntónio Guterres, 2016.

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António Guterres (born April 30, 1949, Lisbon, Portugal) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat who served as prime minister of Portugal (1995–2002) and secretary-general of the United Nations (2017– ).

Guterres, António

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Guterres studied physics and engineering at the Universidade de Lisboa’s elite Instituto Superior Técnico, earning a degree in 1971. His time as a student was marked by the decline of the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, and Guterres was active in the protest movement that helped to topple Salazar’s successor, Marcello Caetano, in 1974. After graduating, Guterres worked as a physics instructor, but, as Portugal began its transition to democracy, he became more active in politics. He joined the Socialist Party in 1974, and two years later he was elected to the Portuguese parliament. Over the next two decades, he served on a variety of parliamentary committees, and, from 1981 to 1983, he was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

In 1992 he was elected secretary-general of the Socialist Party, and in 1995 he was elected prime minister of Portugal at the head of a minority government. During his term Guterres oversaw Portugal’s transition to the euro as its official currency and presided over the transfer of Macau to Chinese sovereignty. He also played a key role in the resolution of the crisis in East Timor (Timor Leste); the former Portuguese colony had been under Indonesian occupation since 1975 and Guterres was a prominent advocate for Timorese independence. After the Socialists were soundly beaten in local elections in December 2001, Guterres resigned, and in early legislative elections held in March 2002, the Socialists were swept from power. In 2005 the UN General Assembly elected Guterres to serve as the High Commissioner for Refugees. He increased efficiency at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), reducing staff and costs at its Geneva headquarters while improving the organization’s response capabilities. Such steps were clearly necessary at a time when conflicts were displacing populations at a level not seen since World War II, and Guterres used his position to encourage rich countries to do more to aid the world’s refugees.

On October 13, 2016, the United Nations General Assembly elected Guterres to serve as UN secretary-general. After six rounds of straw polling among the 15 members of the Security Council, Guterres emerged from a crowded field that included former Slovenian president Danilo Turk and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark. Of the 13 candidates, 7 were women, and many believed that the Security Council would make history by nominating its first female secretary-general. Guterres was the clear front-runner, however, and in the final vote the typically fractious Security Council found rare consensus, with 13 votes in favour of Guterres and 2 abstentions, with none opposed. On December 12 he took the oath of office and was sworn in as the ninth secretary-general in UN history, succeeding South Korea’s Ban Ki-Moon. Guterres’s term began on January 1, 2017.

Michael Ray

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member states of the United Nations (UN)

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United Nations headquartersThe Secretariat building at the United Nations headquarters, New York, New York.

member states of the United Nations (UN), states that have been admitted into the United Nations (UN).

The UN is an international organization that was established in 1945. Following its predecessor, the League of Nations (1920–46), it was the second multipurpose international organization to be established in the 20th century that was worldwide in both scope and membership. The organization’s first members were admitted upon its founding, while the most recent member to be admitted was South Sudan after it became independent in 2011. In addition to member states, there are two permanent nonmember observer missions—one representing the Holy See and the other representing Palestine (Palestinian Authority).

The table provides a list of the UN’s 193 member states and the year in which each was admitted.

United Nations membership

1The seat held by the U.S.S.R. was assumed by Russia in 1991.

2The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a member from 1945 until its dissolution following the establishment and admission of the new member states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia (1992), Macedonia (1993), and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (2000), the last reconstituted as Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. In 2006 Serbia and Montenegro split into separate countries.

3North Yemen (capital at Sanaa) merged in 1990 with South Yemen (capital at Aden). Upon unification, there was one membership.

4Tanganyika merged in 1964 with Zanzibar. The country's name after the merger became Tanzania, with a single UN membership.

5East Germany and West Germany were admitted as separate members in 1973. Upon unification of the two countries in 1990, there was one membership.

6Czechoslovakia, a member from 1945, split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1993.

1945 Argentina, Australia, Belarus (Belorussia), Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia (U.S.S.R.)1, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia2

1946 Afghanistan, Iceland, Sweden, Thailand

1947 Pakistan, Yemen3

1948 Myanmar (Burma)

1949 Israel

1950 Indonesia

1955 Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sri Lanka (Ceylon)

1956 Japan, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia

1957 Ghana, Malaysia

1958 Guinea

1960 Benin (Dahomey), Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (capital at Brazzaville), Congo (Zaire; capital at Kinshasa), Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cyprus, Gabon, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Togo

1961 Mauritania, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania4

1962 Algeria, Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda

1963 Kenya, Kuwait

1964 Malawi, Malta, Zambia

1965 The Gambia, Maldives, Singapore

1966 Barbados, Botswana, Guyana, Lesotho

1968 Equatorial Guinea, Mauritius, Swaziland

1970 Fiji

1971 Bahrain, Bhutan, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates

1973 The Bahamas, Germany5

1974 Bangladesh, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau

1975 Cape Verde, Comoros, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Suriname

1976 Angola, Samoa, Seychelles

1977 Djibouti, Vietnam

1978 Dominica, Solomon Islands

1979 Saint Lucia

1980 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Zimbabwe

1981 Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Vanuatu

1983 Saint Kitts and Nevis

1984 Brunei

1990 Liechtenstein, Namibia

1991 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, North Korea, South Korea

1992 Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina2, Croatia2, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, San Marino, Slovenia2, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

1993 Andorra, Czech Republic6, Eritrea, Macedonia, Monaco, Slovakia6

1994 Palau

1999 Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga

2000 Tuvalu

2002 East Timor, Switzerland

2006 Montenegro, Serbia2

2011 South Sudan

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Zeidan.