The presidency of the Security Council rotates each month among the members, in accordance with the Council's Provisional Rules of Procedure.

• Rotation follows the English alphabetical order of the state names (Rule 18)
• During the month, different representatives of the state may serve as President (Rule 18)
• On occasion, the President may choose not to preside over the Council during consideration of a particular question, in which case another state will preside (Rule 20)
• Each meeting record of the Council lists the names of the representatives and the state represented
• States may transmit a report, entitled "Assessment of the work of the Security Council during the Presidency of [State] in [Month]"

There are currently 15 members of the Council; not all members will hold the presidency during a particular year. Non-permanent members of the Council are elected for 2 years; each state is expected to hold the presidency at least once during its term on the Council.

The Library prepared the following table using the Repertoire of Practice Research Tools tables of Security Council members by year and by country and the meeting records of the Council.

For further information regarding the presidency, the Repertoire of the Practice has detailed studies on the presidency of the Council. The 4th edition of The Procedure of the UN Security Council, by Loraine Sievers and Sam Daws, also has a section on the President with citation to selected meetings that illustrate the practice of the Council with regard to the role.

In the table, the years 1994-present link to the tables of Meetings and Outcomes with links to the relevant documents. 

Security Council Presidency Table, 1946-2019