Security Council Working Methods
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The tables below reflect the Security Council penholders and chairs of subsidiary bodies as of January 2020. The tables do not cover all the agenda items of which the Council is currently seized but focus on items with regular outcomes or those for which a subsidiary body has been established. For the full names of agenda items, please refer to the summary statement by the Secretary-General of matters of which the Security Council is seized (S/2020/10) issued on 2 January. The list of chairs of subsidiary bodies is contained in a note by the Council president (S/2020/2), also of 2 January.
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The 17th annual workshop for incoming members of the UN Security Council, titled “Hitting the Ground Running”, will be held on 7 and 8 November on Long Island, New York. The workshop is convened by the government of Finland in...
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The UK is the president of the Security Council this month. It has decided to hold an open debate on reconciliation, which appears to be a follow-up to an open debate during its last presidency (August 2018), on mediation, where...
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In 1997, Security Council members came up with the idea of producing monthly assessments of their own Council presidencies as one means of introducing a more analytical component into the Council’s annual report to the General Assembly. With two exceptions...
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South Africa is the president of the Security Council in October. It has chosen to initiate two debates on peace and security in Africa. The first, scheduled for tomorrow (2 October), will focus on mobilising youth towards “Silencing the Guns”...
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During different periods of the Council’s existence, the pendulum has swung between the need for more open meetings in the spirit of greater transparency, and the wish for closed-door consultations which may bring more effective decision-making. In 2018, the Council held more than twice as many formal, and therefore open, meetings (275) as informal, closed consultations (120). Just six years earlier, there was near-parity in the two types of meetings. The growing proportion of public meetings has again raised questions about the optimum balance the Council should strike.
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Russia is the president of the Security Council this month. Its presidency will feature a ministerial-level debate late in the month on the cooperation between the UN and regional and sub-regional organisations, with a focus on the role of the...
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When the UN Charter was drafted in 1945, it stipulated that the Security Council would be composed of five permanent members and six elected members. By the 1960s there was a desire to expand Council membership, reflecting the increase in UN membership from the 51 founding member states to 113 by 1963. That year, the General Assembly adopted resolution 1991 A (XVIII), which added four non-permanent members to the Council. The ratification process was completed in 1965. Almost 55 years later, there has been no further change in Council membership. Those in favour of reform maintain that the Council’s membership no longer reflects geopolitical realities and point to the continuing increase in UN membership, which now stands at 193.
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Tomorrow (Tuesday, 20 August) the Security Council is set to adopt the introduction to its annual report to the General Assembly covering 1 January-31 December 2018. Its drafter, the UK, is expected to present the introduction to the members. The...
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Poland is president of the Security Council in August. The month got off to a busy start. Today, a discussion was held by members under “any other business” on recent missile launches by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),...
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Of the five articles in the UN Charter assigning functions to the Secretary-General, Article 99 is the most important in the context of international peace and security. It grants the Secretary-General the authority “to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”. In this way, Article 99 allows the Secretary-General to initiate a Security Council discussion. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld underscored that “[it] is Article 99 more than any other which was considered by the drafters of the Charter to have transformed the Secretary-General from a purely administrative official to one with an explicit political responsibility”. The drafters of the Charter were fully aware of the weight of vesting this task in the Secretary-General: as the report of the UN Preparatory Commission points out, “the responsibility it confers upon the Secretary-General will require the exercise of the highest qualities of political judgment, tact and integrity”.
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Peru is the president of the Security Council in July. As one of its priorities for the month, Peru is organising a briefing under the agenda item “Peacebuilding and sustaining peace” focused on strengthening partnerships for nationally-owned transitions. Peru’s Foreign Minister Néstor...
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In June, the General Assembly elected five new members to serve two-year terms on the Security Council. This event highlights the interactions between these political organs of the UN system, which also include the election of the UN Secretary-General by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Council, and the simultaneous voting of both organs for members of the International Court of Justice, among other forms of engagement. It seems useful, in the wake of the elections to the Council, to consider how the relationship between the Council and the General Assembly can be strengthened.
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Mr. President, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, It’s a pleasure to address the Council on behalf of Security Council Report. SCR acknowledges the dedicated work of Kuwait, now in its second year under Ambassador al-Otaibi as the Chair of...
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Tomorrow (6 June) the Security Council will hold an open debate on its working methods. The meeting is being held under the agenda item “Implementation of the note by the President of the Security Council (S/2017/507)”, referring to the most...
