From 1946 to 1965, the Security Council had six non-permanent members. Due to a lack of African and Asian member states, the seats had the following distribution: • Latin America: 2 members •
Commonwealth of Nations: 1 member • Eastern Europe: 1 member • Middle East: 1 member • Western Europe: 1 member As
decolonization increased the number of Asian and African member states without a group, they began to contest other seats:
Ivory Coast substituted a member of the Commonwealth in 1964–1965, the Eastern European seat regularly included Asian countries from 1956,
Liberia took the place of a Western European country in 1961, and
Mali successfully contested the Middle Eastern seat in December 1964 (the Security Council would be expanded before Mali's term began). An
amendment to the UN Charter ratified in 1965 increased the number of non-permanent seats to 10, and the Regional Groups were formally applied to the seats. The amendment effectively created three African seats and one Asian seat, if treating the Commonwealth seat as a WEOG seat and the Middle Eastern seat as an Asian seat. (In practice, the Commonwealth seat was by then treated as a
de facto African seat.) == Membership by year ==