The elections were for five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 2017.

In accordance with the Security Council's rotation rules, whereby the ten non-permanent UNSC seats rotate among the various regional blocs into which UN member states traditionally divide themselves for voting and representation purposes,[2] the five available seats were allocated as follows: The five members will serve on the Security Council for the 2017–18 period.

This was the first time a Security Council election was held in the month of June.

[17] Following five rounds of inconclusive voting, Bert Koenders and Paolo Gentiloni, Foreign Ministers of the Netherlands and Italy respectively, announced a proposal whereby the Netherlands and Italy would split the two-year term with each country serving one year.

[19] Such arrangements were relatively common in deadlocked elections starting in the late 1950s until 1966, when the Security Council was enlarged.