Overview

France will preside over the Security Council in December.

A high-level meeting is planned on drug trafficking in Sahel and West Africa, with briefings by Yury Fedotov, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and Said Djinnit, head of the UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA).

Debates are scheduled on:

• the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), with briefings by their respective presidents and prosecutors (Theodor Meron and Serge Brammertz for ICTY; and Vagn Joensen and Hassan Bubacar Jallow for ICTR); and
• Afghanistan, with a briefing by Ján Kubiš, Special Representative and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Briefings are expected on:

• the work of the 1737 Iran Sanctions Committee by its chair,  Ambassador Gary Quinlan (Australia);
• the 2013  work of Council subsidiary bodies from outgoing chairs  Ambassadors  Agshin Mehdiyev (Azerbaijan), chair of the 1533 DRC Sanctions Committee; Gert Rosenthal (Guatemala), chair of the 1572 Côte d’Ivoire Sanctions Committee and the Informal Working Group on International Tribunals; Mohammed Loulichki (Morocco), chair of the 1373 Counter Terrorism Committee,  the 2048 Guinea-Bissau Sanctions Committee and the 1566 Working Group on counter terrorism measures; Masood Khan (Pakistan), chair of the 1521 Liberia Sanctions  Committee and the Working Group on Peacekeeping; and Kodjo Menan (Togo), chair of the 1518 Iraq Sanctions Committee and  of the 1636 Lebanon Sanctions Committee; and
• the work of the ICC in Sudan, by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Briefings, followed by consultations, are likely on:

• the UN Support Mission in Libya by its head Tarek Mitri;
• the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, by its chair Ambassador Eugène-Richard Gasana (Rwanda);
• the Sahel strategy, by Special Envoy Romano Prodi;
• the work of UNOWA by Djinnit;
• the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia, by Special Representative Nicholas Kay; and
• the Middle East, by Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry.

Briefings in consultations are likely on:

• issues of concern, by the Department of Political Affairs (under the “horizon scanning” format);
• the humanitarian situation in Syria by OCHA head Valerie Amos;
• the situation between Sudan and South Sudan by Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Edmond Mulet;
• the UN Interim Security Force in Abyei, by Mulet;
• the work of the 1521 Liberia Sanctions Committee by Khan;
• the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous;
• chemical weapons-related issues in Syria, by the OPCW-UN Special Coordinator Sigrid Kaag; and
• the situation in the DRC by Special Representative Martin Kobler and Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region Mary Robinson.

Formal sessions will be needed to adopt resolutions to renew the mandates of:

• the Liberia sanctions and its Panel of Experts;
• ICTY judges;
• UNDOF; and
• the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate.

Also likely is the adoption of a resolution authorising and supporting the AU International Support Mission to the Central African Republic.

On 6 December, the General Assembly will hold an election to fill the Security Council seat vacated by Saudi Arabia.