Council Responses to Tasks Established by the 2005 World Summit
The World Summit Outcome document (A/RES/60/1) tasks the Security Council with a number of specific follow up responsibilities. These include:
| Terrorism (paragraph 90) |
We encourage the Security Council to consider ways to strengthen its monitoring and enforcement role in counter-terrorism including by consolidating State reporting requirements, taking into account and respecting the different mandates of its counter-terrorism bodies.
Action Taken: The reviews of the work of the CTC, the CTED, and the 1267 and 1540 Committees, currently underway, respond in part to this task.
| Peacebuilding (paragraph 101) |
The Peacebuilding Commission should have a standing Organizational Committee, responsible for developing its procedures and organizational matters, comprising: (a) members of the Security Council, including permanent members.
Action Taken: This task was accomplished promptly in December 2005, in resolutions 1645 and 1646.
| Sanctions (paragrahps108 and 109) |
We call upon the Security Council…to improve its monitoring of the implementation and effects of sanctions, to ensure that sanctions are implemented in an accountable manner, to review regularly the results of such monitoring and to develop a mechanism to address special economic problems arising from the application of sanctions in accordance with the Charter.
We also call upon the Security Council, with the support of the Secretary-General, to ensure that fair and clear procedures exist for placing individuals and entities on sanctions lists and for removing them, as well as for granting humanitarian exemptions.
Action Taken: The Council and its Subsidiary Bodies are still to grapple fully with the tasks relating to sanctions, although some discussions have commenced. A report from the Office of Legal Affairs on listing and delisting on Council sanctions lists is awaited. (See our Update Report of 12 April 2006 on the listing/delisting of individuals by the 1267 Committee).
| Responsibility to Protect (paragraph 139) |
We are prepared to take collective action…through the Security Council … should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Action Taken: After five months of negotiation, a draft Council resolution on protection of civilians reaffirming this responsibility was at an advanced stage of preparation at the end of April and was finally adopted on 28 April as S/RES/1674. (See our Update Report of 20 April 2006.)
| Security Council Working Methods (paragraph 154) |
We recommend that the Security Council continue to adapt its working methods so as to increase the involvement of States not members of the Council in its work, as appropriate, enhance its accountability to the membership and increase the transparency of its work.
Action Taken: Discussion of the issue of Council working methods has assumed renewed interest amongst a number of Council members in months. The Council’s Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions has revived its activities under the chairmanship of Ambassador Kenzo Oshima of Japan. It remains to be seen what specific proposals in this regard will emerge.
| Prioritisation of Mandates (paragraph163(b)) |
We resolve to strengthen and update the programme of work of the United Nations so that it responds to the contemporary requirements of Member States. To this end, the General Assembly and other relevant organs will review all mandates older than five years originating from resolutions of the General Assembly and other organs, which would be complementary to the existing periodic reviews of activities. The General Assembly and the other organs should complete and take the necessary decisions arising from this review during 2006. We request the Secretary-General to facilitate this review with analysis and recommendations, including on the opportunities for programmatic shifts that could be considered for early General Assembly consideration.
Action Taken: While the General Assembly has begun a discussion of the mandate prioritisation task, assisted by the Secretary-General’s Report (A/60/733 of 30 March 2006), the Security Council is yet to begin to address officially the implications of the mandate review task for the 865 active Security Council mandates. (See our Review of Security Council Mandates in the May 2006 Forecast.)
| Military Staff Committee (paragraph 178) |
We request the Security Council to consider the composition, mandate and working methods of the Military Staff Committee.
Action Taken: It is unclear whether any response to this Summit task can be expected in the near future.
