Research Reports
Longer in-depth analysis of particularly significant Council decisions, processes or practices.
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References to “Chapter VII” in Security Council resolutions have generated, over time, misunderstandings within the Council itself and the wider United Nations membership. What this phrase actually means lies at the heart of these problems. There seems to be much uncertainty about the meaning and effect of these words, and also about what makes a Security Council resolution binding under international law. The problem has become even more complex as the media has tried to make the debates in the Council understandable to wider audiences. But the effect has been to reinforce various myths. This Special Research Report investigates Council practice. It analyses the history of various resolutions, and Charter provisions in the hope that the situation can be clarified.
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The impact of recent conflicts on children has been horrific around the globe. More than two million children have been killed in war zones over the past two decades. Another six million have been maimed or permanently disabled, and more than a quarter of a million youths have been exploited as child soldiers in at least 30 countries. Many of today’s soldiers were recruited as children, without schooling or knowledge of the society around them. Thousands of girls are subject to sexual exploitation, including rape, violence, abductions and prostitution. No region of the world is immune. Over the last decade, the issue of children and armed conflict has been raised with increasing frequency in the Security Council. In 2005, the Security Council adopted resolution 1612, which authorised the establishment of a monitoring and reporting mechanism at the field level. It also created a Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. Since then, the issue has been firmly on the Council’s agenda. The issue of children and armed conflict is now taken up in the Council on a systematic basis as a thematic issue. Moreover, the Council has developed tools capable of potentially influencing the country-specific work of the Council. The challenge is ensuring that the thematic work is actually reflected in practice, in a cross-cutting way, in the work of the Council. This report attempts to gauge whether children and armed conflict has become such a cross-cutting issue by examining the degree to which the issue has been incorporated into the Council’s work on country-specific issues.
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For sixty years, the Security Council has had the issue of peace and security in the Middle East on its agenda. A central issue throughout the period has been what the Council now calls the Palestinian question. Since 1947, a great deal has been written about the Council’s involvement at various stages. But it is hard to find any published account of its overall involvement. From the outside—and perhaps also to elected members who serve only two year terms—Council action on the Middle East often appears fragmented, limited to the crisis of the moment or a distinct phase of the situation and, often, absent altogether.
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For more than a decade, the working methods of the Security Council have been the topic of much discussion within and outside the Council. This reflects concerns about a number of aspects of Council practice and procedure. Essentially most of these concerns are related to four key areas: Transparency; Participation; Accountability; Efficiency. This Special Research Report looks back over the period from 1993 to the present and describes many of the efforts made to address these key issues. It is not an exhaustive history. The focus is more on issues and reforms to Council working methods which have ongoing relevance.
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This Special Research Report analyses the first year of operation of the UN's new Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and follows up on Special Research Report No. 3 of 23 June 2006 which reviewed the lead-up to and establishment of the PBC. The PBC spent its first year focused on Burundi and Sierra Leone, at the request of the Security Council. Its report on its first year of activities and outcomes is now before the Council and the General Assembly. The PBC's achievements in its first year are more substantive than generally appreciated. Although its outcomes are not only documents, four key documents have been produced: 1. a concept note on integrated peacebuilding strategies (IPBS); 2. the Burundi IPBS/strategic framework; 3. the Sierra Leone draft IPBS/Framework for Cooperation; and 4. the PBC's annual report.
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The General Assembly is scheduled to hold elections on 16 October 2007 for five seats on the Security Council. Ten of the 15 seats on the Council are held by elected members serving two-year terms. The five seats up for election will be distributed as follows:two seats for Africa; one seat for Latin America; one seat for Asia; and one seat for Eastern Europe. The five new members elected this year will replace the Republic of Congo, Ghana, Peru, Qatar and Slovakia in January 2008. Currently it seems that only the Asian seat will be uncontested. Vietnam, the only Asian candidate, declared in 1997 that it would run this year. It campaigned over a ten-year period and won regional endorsement in 2006 virtually assuring it of election. In the Asian Group a candidate can be endorsed a year in advance if there is a "clean slate" (i.e. no other candidates). However, because these are elections to a "Principal Organ" of the United Nations formal balloting is required even when there is an endorsed candidate for a clean slate. (General Assembly decision 34/401, paragraph 16, which allows the Assembly to dispense with elections where there was a "clean slate" from a regional group, applies only to subsidiary organs and therefore does not apply to Security Council elections.)
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The adoption of resolution 1701 on 11 August 2006 was a critical step in ending the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel after 33 days of intense combat, which left over a thousand people dead (1,187 people in Lebanon and 160 in Israel) and displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000 Israelis. But the Security Council, in this resolution, did much more than just achieve a ceasefire. The establishment of a robust UN peacekeeping force, the focus on principles and elements for a "permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution" and wide authority for the Secretary-General to take the lead in peacemaking efforts are all major innovations in the Council's approach to the region. The Security Council is engaged much more proactively than ever before in the Middle East, and its ongoing involvement is seen as a message for a permanent peace. Resolution 1701 is therefore a very important window of opportunity for the region and for the UN. A key question, however, is whether this will be sustained.
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In only twenty days, from 11 to 31 August 2006, the Security Council adopted three resolutions which seem likely to increase UN peacekeeping levels around the world by approximately 50 percent and perhaps increase the overall cost of peacekeeping from the expected 2006-07 level of US$4.7 billion to possibly US$8 billion per year. This new Council activity represents the fourth major surge in UN peacekeeping since the end of the Cold War, each bringing new complex challenges. The first was in the early 1990s, followed by a period of retrenchment until the second surge in 1999-2000 with the establishment of UNMEE (Ethiopia/Eritrea) and MONUC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and the two transitional administrations, UNMIK (Kosovo) and UNTAET (Timor-Leste). The third was in 2003-04 when five new large multidimensional operations commenced: UNMIL (Liberia), ONUB (Burundi), UNOCI (Côte d'Ivoire), MINUSTAH (Haiti) and UNMIS (southern Sudan).
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In mid October the General Assembly will hold elections for five seats on the Security Council. The 2006 election has an unusual level of interest because of high profile contested campaigns within two regional groups. In the Asian Group, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Nepal are vying for one seat. In the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States, Guatemala and Venezuela are in a very hot contest, also for one seat. The elections in the African Group and the Western European and Others Group are uncontested. As a result, South Africa, Belgium and Italy are assured of election. However, because these are elections to a "Principal Organ" of the United Nations, formal balloting is still required. (General Assembly Decision 34/401, paragraph 16, which allowed the Assembly to dispense with elections where there was a "clean slate" from a regional group only applies to subsidiary organs and therefore does not apply.)
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The Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is a subsidiary body of both the Security Council and the General Assembly. It is being formally inaugurated on 23 June. The Council has requested that the PBC consider Burundi and Sierra Leone. Because of the institutional link with the Council, as well as the fact that the PBC will be involved with a number of issues on the Council agenda, Security Council Report will provide occasional reports on the progress of the PBC, starting with the present report on the inauguration of the PBC Organisational Committee and surrounding issues. The PBC Organisational Committee was convened for the first time on 23 June. Members elected Angola as Chair of the PBC and adopted provisional rules of procedure. Two vice-chairpersons were also elected, and Burundi and Sierra Leone were included as the first cases in the PBC's country-specific mode following the Council's request.
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On 16 February 2006 Security Council Report published a Special Research Report titled, Appointment of a New Secretary-General. It described the past history of appointments and discussed the processes used for appointing previous Secretary-Generals. It also described the decisions taken by the United Nations General Assembly in 1997 regarding the introduction of new appointment procedures when the time came to appoint a successor to Kofi Annan. In the three months since February there have been a number of important developments, both in the Security Council and the General Assembly. There were even indications in May and early June that the General Assembly and the Security Council may have been on a collision path. At time of writing, however, it seems that the prospects of a contentious vote in the General Assembly have receded. This Special Research Report looks at the issues that have arisen and what this means for the 2006 selection process which now seems set to commence in July.
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The most important decision that the Security Council will take in 2006 will be the selection of the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. The decision will be of major importance for the future of the United Nations, coming as it does in the midst of a protracted and increasingly rancorous debate over the reform of the sixty-year-old organisation and how to adapt it to respond better to the challenges of the twenty-first century. As the time for the appointment decision approaches, Security Council Report will analyse and preview specific developments, Council dynamics and possible options. At this early stage, our purpose in writing this Special Research Report is to provide relevant factual background on the history, process and procedure; because it seems that Council members are beginning to discuss those issues, at least informally.
