(Session 2) Mechanics of the Security Council in Action - Briefing for Delegates on the Work of the United Nations Security Council

Welcome back, everyone.
I hope you had a chance to rest and we look forward to continuing our conversations from this morning.
We now turn to session two, mechanics of the Security Council in action.
This session moves from the structural and procedural foundations we cover this morning into the practical day to day mechanics that bring the Security Council to life.
Its documentation, its subsidiary organs, its research tool, and the outcome it produces.
Our first presentation this afternoon will examine the procedures and documentation that underpin the council's work from how meetings are formally convened to the documents that emerge from and inform council deliberations.
I am pleased to give the floor to Mr.
James Sattern Chief of the Security Council Secretary of Branch.
James, sis.
Well, thank you very much, Patricia.
Good afternoon, everybody.
It's a pleasure to be here with you, and it's a broad area of topics that we have to cover today.
I thought I would start to make sure we have enough time to focus on the documentation side of things.
I and then we'll find in our discussion documentation really leads to many other aspects of the council's work.
So time permitting, we can touch upon some of those.
But the way I envisioned it, the main purpose of this session will be to explore aspects of a broad category of things, namely security council documentation and its central importance to the work and procedures of the council.
To make this easier, we can break down council documentation into several subsets.
Um, First, the documents in which decisions of the Security Council are published with careful regard paid to the format of these documents.
Second, of course, we have the reports prepared by the Secretary-General, which are requested through council decisions and which provide the council with subsequent information to use as it continues its consideration of an item on its agenda.
You talked about the convening of meetings of the council, Patricia, and of course, um In current practice, reports of the Secretary-General are extremely important as something for the council to convene around to continue its consideration of an item.
And this is why the timeliness of the reports of the SG are extremely important.
The council has defined what it would want to see in reports of the Secretary-General in its notes on working methods.
So this is certainly a an important aspect of many, not all but many council meetings.
Another form that Security Council documentation takes are, of course, letters and communications sent by or received by the president of the Security Council, generally on behalf of the entire council membership.
Um, we also deal with a wide range of communications or letters from member states that are not members of the council.
We'll talk a little bit about that, but this is another important aspect of documentation of the council, since these are letters that can draw the council's attention to issues of concern in accordance with Article 34.
We also have press statements issued by the Security Council.
These are not official documents.
These are not official decisions, but they've become increasingly important as we've seen the number of PRSTs go down.
The number of press statements has increased somewhat, although the political environment in the council at the moment makes even the press statements sometimes difficult to achieve consensus on, and these are consensus documents.
And Sometimes there's a bit of confusion.
There's another genre of pronouncement that the council can make and these are the elements to the press.
They're like a press statement, but they're oral, they're only read out after agreement, for example, in the closed consultations.
The president can come out and read elements to the press.
Perhaps it's a lower bar, and there is no written record on the website, even of a press statement.
It's read out, nothing is written.
You would have to go back on the website and look at the video of the president reading the elements.
In that sense, they're not documents at all.
We have a broad bowl of other documents that we produce in SCAD, that are very important for the council's work.
Um The monthly program of work, which is the grid that's available on the website.
That's one example that's extremely important.
That's the skeleton key to the council's work, and we're instrumental in preparing that with each of the monthly presidencies.
There's the forecast of meetings.
We have the mandate and reporting cycles, which you can see the entire breadth of what the council has requested of the Secretary-General by topic and by month, so you can really see how we plan out the monthly programs of work.
Of course, we work with the Council in producing the Security Council's annual report to the General Assembly, which will be adopted this month.
The procedures for drawing this up are set out in Note five oh seven.
I'll talk to that yet another document, which is a note by the president of the Security Council.
The Security Council annual report is a large document.
The first part is an introduction written by a council member, and that is the council member for July.
So last July, the president of the Security Council is Pakistan.
So they were responsible for producing the 2025 annual report.
And this is what will be adopted by the Security Council this Friday, as a matter of fact.
And I think it will definitely then be taken up by the General Assembly.
After it's adopted by the Security Council, I think it will be on the 5th of June this year.
Members of the GA will have a chance to go on record about this report and the the performance of the report and the Security Council.
This is just an example of some of the other important documents that are not as visible perhaps as Security Council resolutions, but are nevertheless produced by us and for the Council.
But let's go back to the first category that I described, which is decisions.
Of course, this is extremely important.
If you look at the raison d'etre of the council as an executive body to take decisions to ensure the maintenance of international peace and security.
Security Council resolutions are perhaps the most famous documents that emerged from the Security Council, and some of them we know by name after all these years, Resolution 242, resolution 987, Resolution 2234.
The list goes on and on.
I But the council in reality can adopt decisions in any format it deems appropriate.
It's important to remember that.
Now, the majority of these decisions are through resolutions, but it's not the only way that the council can take decisions.
It's interesting to note the word resolution doesn't even appear in the charter at all.
People say, you must have a resolution to have authority, but it's not even in the charter.
The word decision is in the charter, of course, particularly as it relates to Articles 25 and 27.
Many scholars have taken the view that the distinction between formats of the council's decisions is purely formal.
Thus, to quote Sievers and Dawes, the implementation and enforceability of each decision is to be determined not by its format, but rather by its substantive content.
Thus, there is no legal hierarchy among council decisions created by the format in which they are published.
This is to say in reality, legally, for those majority of people that interpret it this way, a PRS, a statement by the president of the Security Council has just as much legal authority as a Security Council resolution, even if that resolution explicitly cites Chapter seven, for example.
Now, this being the case, it's clear that the council decides intends to publish its major operational decisions as resolutions.
There's just something natural about that form.
It is very official.
It's very well organized with preambular paragraphs, operative paragraphs.
These kind of decisions are they fit well within the genre of documents.
Um You know, and so I think this is stemming from practical and political considerations and perhaps owing to the common notion that resolutions are the most authoritative format.
Um, while we're talking about this, questions often arise when we present this material about the debate you still hear, Chapter seven.
What if the resolution explicitly invokes Chapter seven, what if it doesn't? What's the difference? Again, I think it comes to political emphasis, the strength of the text.
But the ICJ had a very important ruling on this way back in 1970 and the International Court of Justice explicitly rejected the view that the obligations of states under Article 25 applied only to enforcement measures.
So the Article 25 isn't even contained in Chapter seven.
And Article 25 says nothing about only enforcement measures.
It says states agree to carry out those decisions of the Security Council.
So that's a little summary of the resolutions.
Now, we can take a look at the screen.
I don't know if you can read it there.
These are the major types of Security Council decisions.
We've talked about resolutions.
You see in the left column, that's the nomenclature that we use.
So that's a success increasing number of Security Council resolutions.
So we're already in the upper 2,800 now or mid 2800s.
And then you'll always know the year because that's contained there.
And of course, we know that's an affirmative vote of nine members with no negative vote of a permanent member.
That's, of course, the bar to adopt a Security Council resolution.
So a resolution can fail because it did not achieve nine votes, or it can fail because it achieved nine votes, but it was voted against by a permanent member.
The PRSTs, these are the statements by the president.
It was, I think it was back in 1994, we devised this nomenclature, so it's very easy to see what genre of document we're talking about because it says even in this is the document symbol on the left, Stroke PRST stroke year, stroke number.
That would be 2026 stroke two.
These are by consensus.
There are a few outlying cases where a member sitting on the security council disassociated themselves from the decision, but In my recent experience and recent practice of the council, council members that are trying to achieve the adoption of a PRST realize they have to get consensus.
If they don't have it, this, this kind of dissociation is not a realistic practice in this in this day and age, I would say.
Um Now, a lot of these decisions, they're worked on in writing on what we call the PC net or at the expert level, and then PRSDs are agreed in the chamber.
That's one of the distinctions about the genre.
You don't have to have a long meeting, but you go in there and it's very formal and that lends to the formality of the document.
Um They PRSTs are used now largely, they can be used in connection with a thematic item on the council's agenda.
You can have a PRST on peacekeeping or children in armed conflict, women peace and security, protection of civilians in armed conflict.
They lend themselves well to these kind of thematic issues.
The Council can underscore important elements of these and they often can call for reports, additional reports from the Secretary-General.
We're talking about documents here, we're talking about reporting here.
Um, like everything in life, reports cost money.
Whereas in a time of greater liquidity, shall we say, or more fiscal soundness, perhaps adding reports to the agenda was more acceptable.
But now these are being scrutinized quite closely.
Not only by virtue of how much additional reporting might cost.
I mean, there's a cost to produce the physical document, there's a cost for the Secretariat to write the report.
But the council's program is increasingly charged.
So additional reporting, in a sense, entails additional meetings of the council.
And I think council members have become to realize that be careful how much you program for yourself because you can become so busy you don't have time to address emerging threats, burning crises, or have time to think.
About solutions rather than just running like a hamster on the wheel, creating statements about additional reporting.
The note by the president, this is an interesting genre.
You don't see these much.
These are really adopted in writing and then published on the website, you won't see these in the chamber.
They'll be referred to this Friday when they adopt the annual report of the Security Council because that decision is recorded in a note by the president.
Um These also are consensus documents, and we spoke a little bit about letters and the press statements.
A little aside here on kind of the flexibility of these genres, getting back to the kind of legal equality of counsel decisions.
Um So we've seen let's talk about designation of individuals under sanctions, for example.
So there's a normal process in the committee whereby a member of the committee, which is a member of the Security Council, suggests a designation, and that goes through the committee.
And if it goes through the committee without objection under the normal procedures, the committee will issue a press release saying so and so or such entity has been designated for sanctions under whichever regime is applicable.
And a note Rabala sent to all member states.
But we've also seen listings of individuals and entities through annexes to Security Council resolutions in the context of the North DPRK, Iran, Darfur, Sudan sanctions regimes.
We've also seen listings of individuals and entities through PRSTs and even back in 2002, there was a delisting of an entity related to Afghanistan through a note by the president, which is extremely rather exceptional and that was coming out of a discussion that was held in the closed consultations.
In the closed consultations, these are not formal meetings of the council and the rules of procedure essentially don't apply when you're in the close consultations.
But there was an urgent need.
This was during the early days after 911 and the original removal of the Taliban from Kabul and they wanted to get the central bank back up and running.
So they rushed into the consultations, they had this discussion, they made this agreement, and then they formalized the decision by publishing this note.
So without this note, there would be no record of the decision.
Yet, the consolidated list was changed and the entity was delisted and things went on from there.
So just to give a sense of some of this flexibility, um, So the letters by the president Rule 19 of the provisional rules of procedure basically sets out that the president is acting on behalf of the is acting under the authority of the council, I should say.
So that's why these are consensus documents.
The president of the Security Council can write to the Secretary-General setting out the terms of reference for a security council visit.
There can be an exchange of letters between the Secretary-General and the president of the Security Council on the mandates for our regional offices, for example, in West Africa or Central Africa, US and UOCA.
This allows the Secretary-General to propose a mandate.
Usually, it's the other way around if the council is adopting a resolution on Monusco there's behind the scenes discussions with the Secretariat, but the council comes with a mandate.
In these exchanges of letters, the SG writes to the president and says, look, you have a mandate of three years for UNC or UNOWAS.
Here's what we would propose as the mandate.
Then the council can look at this and reply to the letter, and if they simply take note of the contents of the letter, then the mandate is accepted as written by the SG.
Or the council can take that letter and say, let's change it around.
Let's do some work on the mandate and send it back to the SG.
Similarly, an exchange of letters is used for the appointment of high level officials like SRSGs, force commanders and what have you.
There's some legal distinctions about generally, let's say the SG writes and says, I intend to appoint Madam XYZ as the SRSG for, you know, country C.
And normally the council will write back and say the council members take note of your letter.
So, I mean, according to OLA, that's really not a very strong endorsement, but it's handy because legally, the SG can make appointments under the charter without Security Council's blessing.
So this kind of this interesting respect that the two principal organs have for each other and in the recent past practice, if the council doesn't immediately come back with saying, we take note of your letter to your intention to eoint, that's kind of a signal that you need to do more consultations, you need to perhaps find another candidate.
So these are some of the decisions taken by these letters.
Notes by the president, we touched upon this a little bit.
They've also been used to basically to amend a resolution.
We've seen deadlines set out in Security Council resolutions extended by notes by the president.
We've seen the amendment of reporting cycles set out in the notes by the president reflect the decision to adopt an annual report.
You can see this after Friday.
Of course, recently, notes by the president have cataloged developments in the council's working methods and procedures.
I And these are compiled and consolidated every several years in a new version of what we call document five oh seven.
I'm sure you all are mostly familiar with this.
These are is the working methods handbook of the Security Council.
So this is where they kind of try to set out in a transparent way what they consider their best practices for themselves and those that are participating in their proceedings.
So this was it's normally revised when Japan is on the Security Council, and it's a process of taking all the notes that have been agreed since the last revision, incorporating those, changing other things of the text, and then coming up with a new version.
It's an interesting process, but this has been an initiative of Japan who is on the council rather frequently.
This was last done in the end of 2024 at the end of their most recent term on the Security Council.
So reports by the SG, I don't think I need to add much here.
They're mandated by the council.
We've touched upon this already.
The council has said, these are really important for council members, particularly those that don't have necessarily a large presence on the ground in all of the areas of the world where the council is engaged.
So the council has called for policy recommendations on long term strategy.
That's what they've asked the SG to put into these reports.
Um Council meetings are organized around their availability, as I've already mentioned.
This note five oh seven says the report should be with the council members four days before the item is considered.
Technically, in all languages, oftentimes to meet this deadline, they're working with English only, advanced translations, advanced unedited versions, as we call them.
Letters from member states.
Actually I can do a different slide here.
Let's see if this works.
Just to note on the reporting, most of the reports are SG reports, they're authored by the Secretariat.
The SG signs off on them.
But we have the SG can also transmit reports from other entities at the request of the Security Council.
A good example here are the OPCW reports on the Syria chemical weapons file.
We recently had a report by the Board of Peace that was conveyed to the Security Council through a letter by a council member.
So these are some of the ways that reports can get there.
And I of course, the council can also be briefed orally, not all reports are written.
For example, on the Libya file, there are meetings every 60 days on Libya, but there's an understanding among the members that the written report would only come every 120 days.
In the other months, these are oral reports.
Similarly with 2334 on the Middle East, there's only two written reports per year in June and December.
But every quarter, there's a briefing on this.
You have two oral and two written, just as an example.
Letters from member states, of course, I mentioned Article 35 letters.
This can be a request for a meeting of the Security Council drawing the council's attention to a threat or a breach of the peace.
Article 51 letters, of course, this is an obligation for states to report on when they take measures, invoking the inherent right to self defense under Article 51 of the charter.
And there have been a lot of Article 51 related letters.
There's been a great flurry of these letters since the end of February with the recent developments in the Gulf.
We have multiple letters from Iran, multiple letters from the Gulf states, among others.
We also see not so many, but we see Article 54 letters whereby states can report on regional arrangements.
Basically, if you're a member state, non member of the council, if you write a letter to the council and you ask that it be published, it will be published.
So I know that's a lot of information.
I could talk more about documents.
I said I was going to focus on documents that I have.
I hope this is what the organizers were looking for.
Behind the scenes, my colleagues and I were processing all of these documents.
We work with the authoring desk, so we're keeping track of when each of these reports is due.
Is it a 90 day report, 120 day report? So we're telling the desks when they need to get the reports in by, we're managing these due dates.
We put them on the monthly program of work.
We submit them.
We work with DGACM on any technical questions and ensure that they get circulated to the council.
By the same token, we process all these letters that we get from member states.
We get them, we look at them, make sure they're correct.
We send them to the presidency for approval, then we circulate them to all the members, then we submit them for publication.
We're a clearinghouse for all of this documentation.
I And then perhaps I'd finish with a question that will be of interest to you.
We also, of course, interact with council members on council products.
And here I get back to the resolutions, draft resolutions, draft PRSTs, et cetera.
So we have this concept of pen holder.
There is a lead drafter on the Security Council.
In some instances, we know when a resolution is expected because if a mandate is going to end, then we know that we'll expect a draft resolution.
We expect a draft resolution on UNAMA to extend the mandate.
The manandid on UNAMA ends mid June.
So here, it's a very organized process and we watch the evolution of this when the time is right, once the negotiations have reached a certain stage, it's the Secretariat that submits this for advanced translation so that we get a head start even while the negotiations are continuing.
So if they call a vote, we're ready and we can deliver the documents in all six languages quickly if a vote is called.
That's the advanced translation piece.
You may be familiar with or know or have heard of the expression of putting a draft in blue.
This really applies to draft resolutions only.
Draft PRSTs don't go into blue.
It's really only the draft resolutions.
But this is a decision to put a draft into blue is taken by the pen holder.
But the pen holder will write to the president and the Secretariat and say, President, we're putting this text in blue.
Please work with the Secretariat to get this text in blue and to schedule a vote on the draft resolution.
So we're the ones that get this signal, we get this message from the pen holder and from the council members and we act on it, and we submit the thing for blue and we get these beautiful blue documents, and we circulate them to the council members in all languages.
Um, so what does that mean when something is put in blue, basically, it's an indication that the pen holders have reached what they consider to be the end of the negotiation process on the text.
They don't believe it can be further improved through additional negotiations, and it's a signal that they're now ready to put it to vote.
Whether it's achieve consensus through silence procedure or not, the pen holder still has the right to put a draft resolution to vote.
Even if it's likely or certain to be vetoed, they still have that right.
So that's the indication to get your instructions.
And so it's a signal.
Now, this doesn't mean that cannot be changed after it's been put in blue.
A draft resolution can be changed after it's put in blue.
When it comes to the recent developments in the Gulf, of course, it was resolution 28 17.
You hear it talked about how this had 146 co sponsors.
A author of a draft resolution can decide to open it for co sponsorship to the wider membership.
We have a great tool for this now for tracking this.
It's much easier than it used to be for us.
But you have to bear in mind if there's any substantive change to that draft resolution, all of the co sponsors will drop off.
If there's a technical problem where you know, it should be the plural its.
That's okay.
That's really purely technical.
But if you change any kind of the substance, we cannot assume that the same states would want to co sponsor the text.
It might have been strengthened too much, it might have been weakened too much, we don't know.
So we make it clear to council members that are opening up a text for co sponsorship, sorry, if there's a change, you're going to lose all the co sponsors.
It's interesting.
It's an interesting political dynamic that gets added to the veto threat and the way the diplomacy and politics is done in the Security Council.
So I guess I'll kind of bring it back to the most interesting decisions there.
I mean, I could go on.
I think we're running short on time.
I think I've used just about half an hour.
I have one.
We're good.
I have one more slide.
I can kind of go from the inside out.
I Let me see if this is working.
Oh, I think, I'm painting the wrong button.
Sorry, it's my fault.
I don't know if you can see this.
Of course, one other important document related to the Security Council is the record of the meetings.
We call these the provisional verbatim records.
So these are produced after every public formal meeting of the Security Council.
And the symbol is stroke pv dot number of the meeting.
You can find any meeting from the beginning and that contains the speeches.
But behind the scenes, for each of those formal meetings, we prepare a brief for the president.
When you hear the procedural parts of those meetings, Why do they always know exactly what to say? Because we help them with that.
We make sure everything is procedurally correct.
These are the invitations under Rule 37, the member states, invitations under Rule 39, the briefers, observer states, that is namely Palestine and Holy Sea.
They have a different procedure that we have to follow.
This is the scaffolding that we prepare before the meeting.
And then the PV will come out several days after the meeting with the flesh on top of the bones, which is namely the interventions of the council members.
So that would be my little coda about how the internal work and we even show you a little bit when you're president of the Security Council and you'll have your own copies of these.
And you could compare this and you can get a lot of the content of these notes when you read the PV, when you read what the president says.
Anyway, yes, there's time for Q&A here.
If you want me to link this more with the convening of the council or I know my colleagues have talked a lot about the interesting stuff.
I'm happy to revisit any of that.
So thank you, Patricia.
Awesome.
Thank you so much, James.
Thank you for your clear details and highly practical preview on the existing documentation and all the nuances associated to each particular document.
We have 5 minutes for questions and answers.
We're running a bit short of time.
We will open the floor and now in case you have any questions, please raise your hand so we can give you the floor and please remember to briefly introduce yourself before speaking.
Again, we'll take a first set of three questions, so the floor is open, so there's any questions, please don't hesitate.
Thank you.
Yes, please go ahead.
Hello, I'm Pedro.
I work for the EU delegation to the United Nations.
So just to be clear, there are some appointments that are of the remit of the Secretary-General high ranking officials, special representatives.
I understood that even in those cases, the council could somehow react, but at the end, if there is, let's say, I know that probably the Secretary-General will take into account the observations of the council.
But the last word, at least on the paper, remains with the Secretary-General, isn't it? Thank you so much for your question.
So if anyone has any other questions, we can take two additional more.
No.
Okay.
Perfect.
No questions.
Perhapsirs, we can start with this one or maybe someone else will have.
Yes, that's right.
The practice has definitely tended to the vast majority of high level officials being appointed after an exchange of letters with the SG signaling his intention to appoint and the president of the Security Council on behalf of the entire body saying, thank you, SG, we take note of your intention to appoint and take note being Rather weak, but still certainly a signal that the council is on board.
But it gives this legal wiggle room because they're not saying you can't appoint.
That's what's the beauty of takes note.
They're not insisting they have the legal right, but they're nevertheless signaling their approval.
There have been instances where the SG has gone ahead and appointed in recent practice without the Security Council's immediate endorsement.
I think the recent appointment of the SRSG for DRC, if I'm not mistaken, and a recent appointment for the SRSG for UNIC.
This is a referendum, don't quote me on that, but there definitely have been at least two recent examples.
In the political environment in the council, things become difficult.
Maybe we'll see more of this.
We have a new SG coming in eventually.
It's something very interesting to watch actually also from the legal perspective.
Perfect.
Thank you for the question.
Thank you.
James, we can take a last question.
I see a gentleman over there, please go ahead.
Thank you so much, GPR Namibia here.
There was a time that there were a number of states that wanted to address the council, but somehow there was a limit or cap that was placed on the larger membership in terms of speaking time.
Quite a large chunk couldn't actually address the council.
What are the different dynamics in terms of Rule 40 37, allowing member states to make statements.
Can the president reject member states? Because it's a request, one requests to speak.
I take note normally at the beginning of the session, members, those accepted their they are read out, I think at the beginning and the council makes a formal decision.
But somehow, I think that one time that I remember, there was a limit.
I think that the number didn't make it.
In the very beginning, some other states were not even allowed.
I take it there were dynamics behind the scenes Um, so I'm not sure whether that is perhaps more of a political consideration due to the sensitivities of the issues there.
But formally back to the member states that ask for the floor in writing, the president would the president notify them and say, formally, you have written and I'm writing back saying that there's actually a limit on the number of states.
What are the different scenarios with the Rule 37? Thank you.
Excellent question.
This relates to largely to the format of the meeting.
I think we probably have a slide.
I know my colleagues were touching upon this earlier.
Let's see.
This is, it's very interesting.
Right now, going in the Security Council is an open debate on protection of civilians.
For this meeting right now, we had 93 speakers inscribed at the start of the meeting.
There's no limitation for the open debates.
The formats are agreed.
As the President for the month develops their program of work in the months leading up to the current month.
It's discussed among council members.
I mean, the protection of civilians open debate is, of course, annual.
It happens every May, so there's no surprises there.
Some of the open debates are thematic and are signature events or elective events that each presidency decides to bring.
But once you have an open debate, then it becomes clear.
But Briefings this is where it gets interesting because briefings is defined in this book by the council itself as a certain limit of participation.
Briefing means that the council members speak, the council is briefed by the Secretariat or another briefer, maybe the interested parties can speak.
And that's supposed to be it.
But if there's a crisis situation, we saw this in Ukraine, we see this in the Middle East, we see sudden emergency meetings called.
They have to be briefings.
You can't call for an emergency open debate necessarily.
We've seen a lot of member states try and right to be included in the list.
You have Two things pushing back on accepting all of those Rule 37 or a number of things, does it fit within the format that's agreed for the briefing and that is agreed among all council members in its working methods? Is there enough time in the council's day, week, month to have endless meetings on these subjects with the entire membership participating? Third, are the states that are requesting, what is their relationship to the discussion to the conflict being considered? So it really is the presidencies recently have had to use great wisdom and diplomatic skill in determining what is the right number of R 37 because you also have different political winds among the council members themselves.
Some council members say, President, you should take all of these, and another council member would say, President, you should take none of these.
So the president can also be caught in an interesting position vis-à-vis these things.
So we've seen some solomonic wisdom here.
If you're a neighboring country, That makes perfect sense.
If you're a especially affected country, that makes sense.
Find ways to limit the number.
If it's a Ukraine meeting, I'm limiting it to a certain number, but we're going to have a representative from the Baltic States.
We'll have a representative from the Nordic states, but only one.
We're not going to have all the Baltic states, we're not going to have all the Nordic states.
Now, they might all right, and then it's up to the president to say, generally, there's discussions behind the scenes.
Ambassador understand, we have a choreography that's been agreed by the council, and as president, I have to stick to this choreography.
This generally works, especially when the president makes a good effort.
At the end of the day, he or she has to take a decision.
And normally that's respected because council members know it's not easy to make those decisions.
So that's that's generally the way that it works.
And I would say it's just at the end of the day, if there was an enormous disagreement, you could always fall back to the rules of procedure and vote these things.
You could have a procedural vote at a formal meeting of the council.
We see that for Rule 39 invitations for individuals, but for member states, it's extremely rare.
It's basically decided in the prior consultations of the council and the president's decision is respected.
A member state who might not have been invited despite a desire to participate, they always have the right to write a letter to the president saying, President, you were wrong not to invite us.
But by the way, here's my statement that I would have delivered.
That gets put into the record.
It's issued as an official document.
That's some of the ways that states have to react.
Perfect.
Thank you so much and thank you so much for your question.
We'll continue with this discussion for hours.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, James, once again for joining us for today's activity and thank you for sharing your expertise and experience with us.
Now we're going to move to the next block, but I would like to be a round of applause to James.
Thank you.
Council.
Perfect.
So now we now turn to a significant operational dimensions of the Security Council's architecture, its actions, committees, and other subsidiary organs.
These bodies are central to how the council implements and monitors many of its most consequential decisions.
I'm pleased to give the floor to miss Mis Ebata, Chief of the Security Council Subsidiary Organs Branch.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I think we're just trying to get our presentation up.
Just 1 second.
Sorry.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, delegates.
First of all, I'd like to begin by thanking the permanent Mission of Portugal and Uniti for organizing this information session on the work of the Security Council, as well as for your continued partnership the past couple of years to brief the general membership on Security Council issues in particular for us on UN sanctions.
It is a pleasure for me to be here.
To explain UN sanctions to you and the work that we do and the various parts of the architecture.
In my presentation today, I will begin with just touching on subsidiary bodies first to give you an overview, and then for the most part, I am going to focus on UN sanctions.
I'm going to outline key aspects or key elements of the Security Council sanctions architecture, including the evolution and the respective roles of the different component parts of this architecture, including the roles of the sanctions committees, the panels of experts, the due process pillars, and the Secretariat.
So, is it me? It's your's my colleagues, sorry.
Article 29 of the charter provides that the legal basis for the council to establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions.
The Security Council has established a wide variety or a wide range of subsidiary bodies to support its work, including sanctions committees and working groups.
The subsidiary organs are under the direct authority of the council and are composed of the 15 members of the Security Council.
So as we mentioned, so there are different types of subsidiary organs.
They include peacekeeping operations, special political missions, and international tribunals, as well as different commissions and investigative bodies.
All of those are considered to be subsidiary bodies of the council.
But for the purpose of today's presentation, I'm going to focus on a subset of subsidiary bodies, specifically its committees and its working groups.
So you can see that there are 18, The committees and seven working groups.
Of the 18 committees, 15 of those are sanctions committees, some more active than others, and three committees established along thematic lines.
All working groups, as you can see, are established along thematic lines.
I mean, if you wish, I can go through what they all stand for.
But just to say that the three branches of SCAD that you're hearing from today, Jay, who's the Secretariat Branch, his team supports some of the working groups.
My colleague Ahmed supports the IWG on documentation and other questions.
Then my branch, the Subsidiary Organs branch, we support all 15 sanctions committees, as well as the 15 40 Committee on nonproliferation, the 13 73 Counterterrorism Committee, the working group on children armed conflict, as well as the informal working group on general sanctions issues.
So here, I'm sure Jay mentioned the council's program of work.
The subsidiary organs also has a program of work which you can also find on the interactive calendar on SCDs website.
It's a much less formal process in terms of agreeing on meetings.
Mostly it's about the availability of the interpretation team.
All the meetings are in CR seven next door.
It's mostly about scheduling committee meetings that don't conflict with the council meetings.
As you can see, the program this month is extremely empty.
It's fairly empty.
You'll only see one meeting of the of the sanctions committee.
That's because right now there is no agreement on the chairs of subsidiary bodies.
The difference is the military staff committee, which has a different arrangement, so there are more meetings for them.
It should be noted that the work of the subsidiary organs is confidential.
It's useful to have a briefing like this because we know it's quite opaque in terms of what's happening with.
I'm sure you're aware of sanctions, you're aware of sanctions committees but you don't really know what takes place, what happens inside, how does it work? It is because the work is confidential.
Nevertheless, in a forum today, but also in other ways, from note five oh seven, Um, the council decided it was very important to ensure that there's more transparency, there's more communication, there's more information sharing and awareness raising with the general membership.
You'll see that every meeting is published in the journal, Um, they're included, as we mentioned in this program of work.
It's on the Security Council website.
Any information about new designations is published on the Security Council sanctions list, which is also communicated through different fora.
You'll find information on our website, in particular, under the Sanctions Committee tab on the SCAD website.
Also, committees also issued press releases to give a summary of the discussions that took place in the committee meeting.
Now I'd like to focus on sanctions.
Of course, it's the council that is responsible for imposing UN Security Council sanctions.
They're imposed under Chapter seven, which of course obligates all member states to comply and to implement the decisions of the council.
The legal basis is found in Article 41, as you can see here, where the council may decide what measures up to but not involving the use of armed force are to be applied to give effect to its decisions.
Then it also calls upon member states to implement these decisions and to apply such measures.
What is the purpose? Sanctions for the council are intended to modify behavior or to limit or to restrict activities posing a threat to international peace and security.
I think it's important to mention from the outset, sanctions are not an end in themselves.
They are a tool of the council and they're part of the council's larger strategies or broader strategies to resolve conflict, to advance nonproliferation, to counterterrorism.
They operate alongside mediation efforts, peacekeeping operations, peace building activities, other prevention efforts.
The Council has applied sanctions to support peaceful transitions, to deter non constitutional changes, to constrain terrorism, to protect human rights, and to promote nonproliferation.
So while sanctions have evolved over time, and the next slide, we'll show that a little bit.
Since 2004, all UN sanctions have been targeted So this was a move away from the original sanctions which were comprehensive and they may have applied to specific countries.
This was a deliberate attempt by the council or efforts by the council to avoid humanitarian consequences on the civilian population.
Most sanctions regime include three measures.
The most common measures are an arms embargo, a travel ban, and an asset freeze.
There are also vessels who are listed, and these apply to individuals and entities.
There are no UN sanctions on countries.
There are UN sanctions measures applied to individuals, entities, and vessels.
In some sanctions regimes are much more complicated than this, which prohibits a number of which prohibit a number of other activities, which also include other types of financial measures as well.
In 2002, I think it's also important to mention, um, that sorry.
The council was conscious or aware of the potential for the impact on civilian populations.
So most sanctions regime includes standardized humanitarian and other exemptions.
So there are exemptions and procedures for these exemptions for the travel ban, for example, for the asset freeze.
But in 2022, with the adoption of resolution 2664, the council adopted what we call a humanitarian carve out.
So this is a standing exemption that applies to all sanctions regimes, which which is an exemption on asset freeze measures only for humanitarian actors, but it prescribes the type of humanitarian actors.
But this applies to humanitarian assistance and it also refers to basic needs.
If you're familiar with the resolution, it only applied to the 12 67 Isil Dis Sanctions Committee for two years.
Last in 2024, there was another resolution which extended this application permanently.
As the humanitarian carve out demonstrated, UN sanctions or UN sanctions regimes, they're not permanent.
They do end.
They can be adjusted, they can be updated, they can be moderated, and they are terminated.
I just wanted to highlight the fact that they're not permanent.
Now with this slide, just to cover a little bit of the evolution.
The first sanctions regime was imposed in 1966 in response to the illegitimate seizure of power in Southern Rhodesia.
The most recent example is in 2022, which was the establishment of the Haiti sanctions regime in relation to the gangs and other activities happening in Haiti.
Um, you can see that over time, there have been 31 different sanctions regimes.
Some of them have come back in the sense that you'll see Libya, there are two because there was a sanctions regime, and at some point there was another resolution which updated the regime.
Just to note what has changed in recent years.
In 2017, the Council established the sanctions regime on Mali.
However, for various reasons, the sanctions regime was terminated in August of 2023.
Similarly, in relation to 17 18, which is the DPRK sanctions regime in relation to North Korea, there had been a panel of experts established in 2009, but after 15 years of consensus, the Council decided to terminate the mandate of the panel of experts.
The sanctions regime remains, but the panel no longer exists.
Last year, you may be aware that the Iran sanctions regime snapped back, including its panel of experts.
It was reinstated on the 27th of September pursuant to a process which was set forth in resolution 2231.
The mandate of the panel of experts was a one year mandate, so it will be reconsidered by the council in September of this year.
I'd also like to mention that, as I've said, there have not been sanctions, there are no sanctions on UN sanctions on Syria.
Nevertheless, certain political figures were on sanctions list on the 12 67 sanctions list.
In November of last year, the council adopted a resolution to remove President Shrah from the 12 67 sanctions list as well as the interior minister at the council level, and then at the committee level, HTS was removed from the sanctions list.
So there are different levels of decision making, but it's also the council can take these steps.
Another aspect I'd like to highlight, which is a little bit technical, but in the Libya sanctions regime, it also applies.
There is an asset freeze in relation to Libyan assets, which are in excess of $70 billion.
In order for those assets to not lose their value, the council adopted measures for reinvestment to prevent the depreciation of the assets so the assets remain as they were for the Libyan people, which is the intention of the sanctions regime.
So now I'm going to turn a little bit to the architecture.
So we started off with subsidiary bodies.
So the sanctions committees are one of the key stakeholders, key parts of the sanctions architecture.
So, um, as we said before, all sanctions committees are composed of the 15 members of the council.
Okay.
What do these committees do? First of all, I think it's important to know this all committees operate by consensus, all 15 members of the committee have to agree when they take decisions.
So part of their role is to examine information.
It could be presented information submitted by a member state, it could be information from a panel of experts to take appropriate actions on sanctions, including addressing alleged violations, or it could be to consider the exemption requests or also to make listing designations, as well as they will have to consider delisting.
Um, and they carry out their work through informal and formal meetings and through written procedures.
Most decisions are taken through written procedures.
Committees are they can also undertake and support a chairs visit.
I think one of the most recent chairs visit was to DRC and neighboring regional countries to hear the situation on the ground, to hear from different stakeholders, to see for themselves.
Committees also submit annual reports to the council and they also hold open briefings.
Could it be open regional briefing or it could be an other open briefing.
Um, as I said, so they take decisions by consensus through a written, it's called a no objection procedure, which I'm sure you've heard before.
Normally, it's five days, but it's not always.
In terms of the decision, if there's silence, it means the decision is passed, there can be a hold or there can be an objection, and there are various periods of time for holds at or they would have to be an objection.
Sorry.
The the mandates over the committees are, of course, in the Security Council resolution, but the working methods are outlined in the guidelines of the committee.
You will find on our website for each sanctions committee, there are guidelines in terms of how they take decisions and various procedures.
They are mostly harmonized, but they are not all exactly the same.
So they refer to the mandate, the decision making, the conduct of the meeting, listing, delisting, exemptions, outreach activities.
The guidelines are, of course, also adopted by the committee, so it requires consensus to actually have these.
There are also implementation assistance notices, which also have to be put by the committee.
And as I mentioned before, each sanctions committee, but also every subsidiary body is chaired by an elected member of the council.
They are not chaired by the permanent five but by the elected members.
And these chairs provide overall leadership of the committee, and they also are there to facilitate the decision making because as you can imagine, consensus is not always easy to reach.
So this is why the chair has an important role to play.
So to enhance the um I'm sorry, I should have said, happy to take questions at any time, too, but I'll just continue on.
We know it's very technical, but I always forget to introduce myself, but anyway.
In terms of transparency and communication, chairs report to the council.
There are periodic briefings, there's annual reporting, there are reflections by the chair.
There are also benchmark and technical assessments, the Secretary-General reports, usually in relation to the arms embargo.
Then there's expert panel reporting per mandate.
We've already mentioned, there are briefings to member states, council meetings, and also invitations to regional and other meetings.
Slide.
Now the panels of experts.
First of all, they're very similar, but there's the panels of experts, group of experts, and the monitoring team.
There's only one group of experts, that's in relation to DRC, 15 33.
The rest are panels of experts and the monitoring team supports the 12 67 sanctions regime, which is Isil Dash Al Qaeda and also 1988, which is the Taliban regime.
There are only ten panels of experts.
Of the 15, there are only ten.
On the right hand side, you can see that those regimes are not supported by experts.
We explained what happened to DPRK and also some regimes are not as active as others.
What do, um Experts do.
There are a total of 56 experts.
Security Council resolutions determine the size.
The Haiti panel of experts, for example, consists of four.
The monitoring team now consists of eight, it's 4-8 and in between.
They're all home based except for the monitoring team.
The monitoring team is based in New York.
The others are what we mean by home based is that the experts do not work in one location, they are based in the country, usually where they're from.
Their mandate is also defined by the resolution and generally includes monitoring the implementation.
Of the sanctions regime, they monitor violations, they report on the violations, they make recommendations for the committee's consideration.
They also help to raise awareness.
They also help to explain different aspects of the resolution because member states may not understand what is required of them, so the panels also have this important role.
They conduct extensive consultations, they conduct investigations, and they report.
The reports are publicly available.
Some are not, but it depends on the resolution.
But every publicly available report you'll find on our website.
And they are often cited and they do attract a lot of attention.
In terms of the lifecycle of the panel's work, this includes I'll get into this later about the role of Secretariat, but we recruit experts every single year.
Some of you may be aware that I try to brief the regional groups to explain the recruitment process because we're always looking for experts, explain the nature of the expertise and the technical aspects of the application.
Then there's contracting onboarding, but travel, so they travel to the country concerned and also neighboring countries and we organize various areas of support for them.
Generally speaking, the thematic areas that they cover would be armed groups, arms, aviation, counterterrorism, customs, finance, natural resources, humanitarian and regional issues, non proliferation.
Each expert would cover a particular area of expertise.
Another important part of the architecture are the lists, the sanctions list and the UN consolidated sanctions list.
By moving away from the comprehensive to the targeted sanctions, as I mentioned, it's individuals, entities, and vessels which are designated according to specific criteria, which then place them on a sanctions list.
You could be placed on the 12 67 sanctions list or the Sudan sanctions list or whatever or various things.
Then the Secretariat consolidates the list.
You'll see here a few of the criteria which cut across most of the sanctions regime.
Obviously threats to peace and stability, violations of human rights, recruiting or using children armed conflict, obstructing humanitarian aid, sexual gender based violence, as well as attacks on UN staff personnel.
That's also usually another designation criteria.
So, am I running out of time? No.
Okay.
Um, any state can submit a proposal to the sanctions committee for designation, but it's it's the committee itself that takes the decision whether to put an individual or entity on the sanctions list.
I just wanted to emphasize that we can go to the next slide.
Here you'll see currently there are 1,000 entries on the list.
This does not include the vessels, and you can see that approximately 40% are for the 12 67 sanctions regime, and then the remainder 60% cover the other sanctions regimes.
As you can see, it also goes up and down.
I just want to emphasize that to be on a sanctions list carries a lot.
It has a serious impact on individuals.
You do not have access to your assets.
In order to leave the country, you require permission from the sanctions committee to travel to another country if you're invited or for medical reasons or to participate in a peace process.
Those require exemptions, which requires decisions by the committee.
Um, and while committees try to be as efficient and take decisions as quickly as possible, nevertheless, there's a process.
It also takes time.
There's quite a serious impact of being put on the list, which is why it's important, next slide.
The list is available in all official languages.
You can subscribe to the sanctions list.
A lot of law enforcement agencies subscribe, government subscribed banks, financial institutions.
We also have an RSS feed because it's important that once the council takes a decision, we update as quickly as possible within a number of hours and then member states are obligated to implement it at that time.
But I mentioned the impact because it leads to the next topic because what is the process for being removed from a list? We refer to this as due process.
The right of an individual or entity to be heard, to have an effective remedy, to have their petitioner request to be removed to be heard.
In 2006, the first pillar of due process, the focal point for delisting was created to hear requests for everything except for 12 67.
This was known as a mailbox.
Basically, it was the Secretariat.
We would share the request with the various committees.
Committees could take as long as they wanted, and there was very little communication.
In 2024, through the adoption of resolution 2744, after 18 years, the council finally took the decision to make a more effective process by empowering the focal point for delisting to engage with the petitioners to conduct to hold a dialogue with them to allow them to make their case and to present a comprehensive report to the relevant sanctions.
60% of the list, so almost 600 or give or take, 600 entities on the list.
But in 2009, the council decided to create a special office for the 12 67 sanctions regime.
Any listed individual entity on that list can apply to be delisted through the Office of the ombudsperson.
Right now the oudsperson is miss Vera and gas, who's from Cameroon, who recently took up her assignment.
She was appointed in mid November but took up her assignment in mid December.
That resolution also reintroduced the informal working group on general sanctions issues.
This working group could look at thematic issues related to the implementation of sanctions, the focal point mechanisms, the working methods of the sanctions committees, the panels, the designation, the lists.
They have a wide ranging mandate and they also held an open briefing to member states in December last year.
But this is a body that can review these UN sanctions work.
What should we look at in order to review it? Where are the challenges with UN sanctions? So finally, just to mention, the Secretary, so I'm joined here by my colleague, Jay.
So we're the subsidiary organs branch and the sanctions branch.
So we provide support to the committees, to the chairs, to the panels of experts, the recruitment, to all their logistical administrative support.
We also advise the council in terms of language and the resolutions and other technical details and resolutions.
We manage the sanctions list, we conduct the benchmark and technical assessment missions, which, as I said, are mostly related to the arms embargo.
Plus, we undertake training and plus we like to engage with all member states.
Plus, we're trying to expand our engagement with the private sector as well since the private sector is very engaged on UN sanctions and other key tasks.
And just to give you an idea, we are organizing a five day sanctions training in Geneva with the support of Switzerland.
If member states are interested, you could let us know, and you can also reach out to us if you want to learn more about it.
Then as you know, there will be the election of the new members of the council and we provide a comprehensive training program for all incoming members of the council towards the end of the year.
That's the very quick overview of sanctions and subsidiary bodies, and happy to take any questions.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, miss vata.
Now we will now open the floor for questions and answers.
As always, please remember to introduce yourself.
We can take the first set of three questions.
So if there are any questions, the floor is open.
Thank you.
Yes, please go ahead, Madam.
Hi, good afternoon.
My name is Mariella Fon Rose.
I'm from the Pumant Mission of Tridad and Tobago.
I just had a question.
You had mentioned that there needs to be consensus in a particular sanctions committee.
What obtains if there's no consensus? Is there any example that you could give us where they were able to overcome that or if it's still stuck? Thank you.
I Good afternoon.
Christine Jahre from the Comission of Trina you as well.
I have a question pertaining to the chairmanship of the subsidiary bodies and how is that determined? Is it that when the newly elected members of the council go in, they just inherit, for example, if we're going up to the Gulc group, is it the candidate that's coming off that you inherit, or is it decided amongst the groups and how long is that chairmanship for? Thank you.
Perfect.
Thank you so much for your question.
Is there any additional question from the room? No, perfect.
Maybe we can start with two questions.
That looks great.
Thank you very much for the questions.
There are many examples where there's no consensus.
I'll give you an example of a chair may propose a chair's visit, but all 15 members of the committee need to agree on whether to take the chairs visit or not.
Sometimes there may be different ideas about the nature of the scope of the visits or not every member agrees that this particular sanctions regime needs to have a visit or there was a visit two years ago, maybe there doesn't need to be a visit now.
So you it's not guaranteed that if a chair proposes a visit, that it'll take place.
Then it's up to the chair to undertake the bilateral discussions to try to reach agreement.
But if there's no agreement, it doesn't take place.
It's just as simple as that.
There are a lot of notifications that go through things that require decisions, and if no decision is taken, for example, if there's an exemption and request, the request is basically not approved.
A request can only be approved.
There can be a period where there's no decision or there's a decision against it.
But that's why the chair has an important role.
In terms of the appointment of chairs, I'll point again to Note five oh seven and maybe also leave that to my colleague Ahmed to cover a little bit more because the determination of chairs is a council process and there has to be consensus amongst the council on the chairmanships.
But the period of chairmanship is two years, it's the time that you start until your term ends.
Perfect.
Thank you so much for your questions.
We still have a few minutes left, so we can take one or two last questions.
So if the floor is open.
Perfect.
I don't think that there's any further questions, so I would like to seize this opportunity to thank you, miss bata, for your comprehensive and detailed presentation and overview of the UN Security Council subsidiary organs, UN Sanctions architecture.
So thank you so much.
It was a pleasure having you.
And so please join me to Verona applause.
Thank you.
Now, please allow us one, 2 minutes until we set up the next presentation.
In the meantime, our next presentation will focus on the research tools and documentation resources available to delegations and practitioners seeking to navigate the Security Council's work, including the Council's repertoire, a key reference resource maintained by the Secretariat.
I am pleased to give the floor to Mr.
Ahmed Ganim Ali, Chief of the Security Council Practices and Charter Research brand.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
It's a pleasure to be here again for the second year.
I would like to start by thanking the Commission of Portugal and our colleagues at Unita for this opportunity and a pleasure to be with you and of course, with those who might be following online.
The presentation is on the research and analysis in life of practice and working methods of the council.
Present myself.
My name is Ahmed Gham.
I'm the chief of the Security Council Practices and Charter Research branch, which is the third branch of Scout as two others have preceded me.
I would start by saying that I know that there are two challenges with this presentation.
First coming at the end of the day, end of a long day.
I know it's always challenging, so I'll try as much as possible to have it hopefully interactive or at least provide certain practical tools for the research.
Know as well that it comes after the presentation of my two colleague, the chief of the Secretariat branch and subject organs branch.
I've followed them in order not to repeat any of the points they've covered already tried.
You might see in the slides some of the reports that have been covered, but I'll make sure to jump directly to those points that have not been covered by my colleagues.
Without further ado, I'll start with the points of the presentation.
The outline of the presentation refocusing on the porial practice of the Security Council, I can't speak about it in details, the existing SCAD research and analysis tools, and the possible research support to be provided by SCAD, followed by, of course, questions and answers.
So with the first point being theire I'll start briefly by describing the work of our branch within SCAD.
As mentioned, you heard the presentations by my colleague, James Suttern from the Security Council Secretariat Branch, Michie Ba from the Security Council Subsidy Organs Branch.
Our branch is Security Council Practices and Charter Research branch.
It is also important to note the Secretariat of the military staff committee.
The three branches I'm speaking about represent the civilian work of the Security Council.
There is also the military staff committee, which is subsidy organs foreseen by the charter.
The branch is the advisory and research arm of the Security Council on issues related to practice, procedure, and working methods.
It prepares the repertoire of the practice of the Security Council, which I'll speak about in detail, but it provides also guidance regarding contemporary and past practice of the Security Council and its interpretation and application of the charter and provisional rules of procedure.
There is a work that we do closely with the new council members, but it's important to highlight that we provide the support and research to all membership of the organization.
There is, of course, a day work with council members, those present from council members would be aware of that.
But as I will come to speak, we also submit car, but also specifically because of our work on the research and repertoire, our advisory role is for the entire membership, and it's important to reiterate that we will remain at the disposal of the wider membership for any questions or research support that can be provided.
There is also the substantive support as the Secretariat of the Security Council's informal working group on documentation, other procedural questions, which is a subsidy organ of the council that has been referred to by my colleague Mice and where we with the Secretariat work closely with our Secretariat branch colleagues.
We also the focal point Insights CT for the Security Council reform process and for preparation of other information resources that we provided.
On that, I'll start speaking of the repertoire of the practice of the Security Council.
What's the repertoire? It's a document that is prepared for making the evidence of the customary international law to be readily available that has been established by General Assembly resolution of five December 1952.
It's a comprehensive coverage of the Security Council interpretation and application of the U charter and the provisional rules of procedure since 1946.
The general character of the repertoire is that a It avoids taking any position.
It presents what has been presented through official documents of the council, as well as the PVs, the pros of the council.
It is important in terms of presenting the practice and the interpretation that has been provided by council members to the charter.
It does not constitute in itself a work of codification or interpretation.
It is left entirely to the reader.
What it produces is through official documents and a recount of the discussions of formal meetings of the council.
It presents how working methods, precedents were discussed during the council and what is the interpretation that has been provided.
To provide precedents of the council ready available for leader for the wider public because this is a public document, of course, of important use for council members, but for the wider membership, it's important to recall that the repertoire has been created by the resolution of the General Assembly and why the General Assembly, I think it speaks for itself.
It's the importance for the wider membership being aware on regular basis of the discussions of the council and its interpretation of the charter and the provisional rules of procedure.
Of course, again, these documents are publicly available through the PVs official council documents, but this compilation is of essence also for research and for reference to past presidents of the council.
The first edition of the repertoire was published in 1954.
It covered the period 1946 to 1951, followed by 26 supplements.
I for many years, one supplement covered more than one year, sometimes you would see a period of 46 to 51, five years, sometimes then later on two years.
But it's important to note that as of 2008 and thanks to work that has been intensive to address the backlog, it is produced on annual basis.
This allows an almost real time review of the discussions and interpretation of the Council of Decisions, discussions and documents.
As I mentioned earlier, it's based only and solely on official documents, meaning decisions, transcripts, PVs, letters, and reports.
As I mentioned, we produce it on annual basis, of course, addressing the previous year.
In other words, currently we're working on the 2025 documents to be produced, at the end of this year, it would be ready available.
Last December, we finalized the repertoire for 2024.
Why, of course? Because once the year ends, we have all documents available, and then we start because this is, of course, also in comparison albthmatic areas.
The work, of course, the research starts in real time, but the drafting itself starts the following year.
When we say on annual basis, we have to take into consideration that, of course, the drafting only starts once the year has ended.
Nevertheless, despite many challenges that I can assure you in ensuring that we have upheld this annual production of the repertoire and as I mentioned last December, it was available for 2024 and this year we're working on 2025 with the objective to have it finalized before the end of the year and keeping up with this annual basis production.
The repertoire has different main items, the agenda items, and I know our director presented the agenda items that are covered by the Council, the procedural practice in terms of meetings, agenda, presidency, conduit business participation, the constitutional practice in terms of the interpretation of the different articles, and finally, the subsidy organs, which have been as well explained by my colleague Vice.
It's divided in ten chapters.
It was not always the case, this is the most recent division.
There have been different parts.
Each chapter we call P one, p21 to ten.
Some are aligned with chapters of the charter.
Part seven, for instance, is on action with respect to threats to peace, breaches of peace and acts of aggression.
Part eight, again, aligned region arrangements, but others are simply part one agenda items for visibility because starting with the agenda items.
Here we have in front of you the different ten parts of the repertoire that represent as much as possible alignment to relevant articles of the charter.
Our process, as I mentioned, how we start drafting research and drafting.
Within the year of itself, of course, we start the research.
As of this year, we are looking at the year 2026, our current year, but drafting for 2025.
Once finalized, the target is finalizing at the end of the year.
As I mentioned, for this year, our target by December 2026, that we finalize the year 2025 so that we have it on annual basis.
By July 2027, we'd have a printed English version.
What we have available once finalized is an online version that is accessible on the Security Council website, and then later on translated in all official languages, which would be the target by December 2027.
So we have it by the end of the year already available online, but noting that of course, the editing and the printing of a hard copy takes around six months and then the translation takes another six months, but it's already available in English and online by the end of the year.
So very often before going there, there is a question, how does it look like in practice? What is the repertoire actually? I presented the highlight, but it's important to show you what the document actually looks like in real life.
It's a document that looks like this.
As I mentioned, it's available online in real time.
For this year, for instance, once we finish each of the ten parts, it's already put online.
This is helpful, first of all, to make the information readily available for member states and the general public immediately once finalized, if there is a research or a need, doesn't have to wait until the end of the year once a part is finalized, it's put already as an advanced version online, and by the end of the year, the ten parts are put.
That's a first point that I wanted to highlight.
So This is also important in terms of comments, special indications of anything that has been found in the research.
This is always very helpful, so we've put it also online because this helps instigate the interaction with member states in that goal.
It's important to note as well that while we have a hard copy, we have many research tools online that I will come to speak about to facilitate the research.
As many colleagues say, it's not expected to be read from the beginning to the end, it's useful and it's not expected many of you are very busy.
So it's nothing that is expected.
But what is important is that it's always serves as a research tool.
Whenever there is myself but also all colleagues, when we speak about precedents, we want to go to the historical record of the work of the council.
It is really the reference in that perspective.
This is where we go to look and I know many of my colleagues spoke about precedents, about the working methods in the sense of a certain tradition followed by council members that becomes a precedent and a working method of the council.
The reference is there through the discussions, through the work through a reading to the repertoire.
Come to speak, of course, about the online version and how it helps the research methods.
But it was important also to show you how it looks like.
Looks as long document as I mentioned, but it's important to note that helps whenever the main topic you're looking at, the part of the tack that it's in ten different parts aligned with the article relevant articles of the charter, facilitates the research from that perspective.
Okay.
So while this is the main research tool presented by the branch are research products that are presented also to facilitate the research and the access to information.
The branch produces a number of Power BI based interactive data, with visualization and analytical tools, we have over 20 datasets in various formats.
These are based on different, procedural and constitutional topics related to the work and the practice of the council.
As example, dashboards related to field missions, the vetoes, RA formula meetings, chairs of subsidy boundary and security council membership.
Um, as well as cross cutting and focus with gender desegregated data like women peace and security, children armed conflict, protection of civilians, women peace and security, but also climate peace and security.
These are, as you can see, power BI dashboards, datasets that provide information on specific issues that can be helpful.
For example, on meetings, public, you can see this is an example of some of the dashboards we produced visuals that we produce that shows the trend of meetings.
By the way, the colorful two years are because of the COVID, so you can see that many of the meetings were online, so this is why you have different colors, but it shows also the trends in terms of the work of the council on different topics.
I'll speak about that in detail.
As an example of recent datasets that we've produced in 2025 that we've put on the peace and security data up was voting records of the UN Security Council since 1992.
By that, you can research by member states.
You can go online, look for any member states, what was the voting trend by member state, and this is since 1992, of course, we would be updating it, but this is the work so far.
And this is the type of research tool as well that we provide to facilitate the access to information to data and based on information that we retrieve also from our research products such as the repertoire.
Another important also output that we produce that is available online is the annual highlights paper.
This is a document that is issued in January of each year, covering the previous year, this year, 2026, in January, we produced the 2025 highlights paper.
It's an annual publication that has been established since 2011.
Providing concise summary of the practice of the council for the previous year, but in comparison with previous years.
While the repertoire is covering one year with a focus on the discussions and official documents of that year, the annual highlights paper is providing a comparison with previous year by thematic and different topics.
The content includes, for instance, meetings, participation, agenda, decision making, voting, and it's always compared with previous years.
Today, it's an interactive and web based platform that is available with considerable amount of data and trends analysis.
It complements the work on the paire by providing more procedure focused data following the conclusion of the reporting period.
So these are examples of what you'd find in the annual highlights paper.
For example, from 1950 until the end, old meetings 1946-2025.
You can see the trend in terms of meetings, consultations, open VTCs.
So you can see a clear trend within certain periods, an increase in consultations versus meetings, and again, a return to meetings being having the majority of the activity of the council.
But these charts help very much seeing and recognizing the evolution and the development of the work of the council.
The other slide is on voting on draft resolutions.
By the way, just for those who can't read it, the light green is adopted non unanimously and the green unanimously and yellow not adopted and blue is a veto.
But these figures show clearly the trend and the red shows the trend in unanimity, the ups and downs and the rise and fall.
I think these figures show clearly the different trends in the council and provide a comparison, as you can see here in 2014 to 2025, a period of ten years.
For the other side, it's really from the beginning of the work of the council.
But just to know that these charts are focusing on a year to year and a certain period of time comparison which shows the trends in the work of the council rather than the repertoire, which is important with a focus, as I mentioned, on annual basis.
We also produce on a monthly newsletter.
This has been a product of the branch since May 2021.
It's available online.
It's sent by the way to PCs in the Council, but it's available each month online.
We produce it the first working day on the month.
You would find it available online at the Security Council website at the first working day of the month.
It's a snapshot of the Security Council activities in the previous month.
As I mentioned, it's circulated among Security Council members and UN Secretariat, but it is available online immediately.
On our website and it's open to subscription to the general public so everyone can have access.
Again, the focus there is on the statistics and the main activities of a given month by the signature events, the key topics, the procedural notes, and a recap of decisions and other activities.
As I mentioned, the fact that it's on a monthly basis helps also following, especially for the general public because it's open to subscription for not only the wider membership, but even individuals through our Security Council website.
Finally, I know our Director Clavier referred to the interactive handbook of the working methods, which is available online, which again includes the information that you can access on meetings, subsidiary bodies, annual reports, Security Council measures, and that by categories provides access to the official documents and the information that we've presented.
For our research support, this is important and a point that I really wanted to highlight during this discussion.
These are products and outcomes that we produce monthly basis, annual basis, but there is also the direct support that is equally important to council members and to the wider membership.
I always like to use this opportunity to reiterate that we're there really to provide any research and we often ask by specific questions, mostly by council members, but not only by council members.
We receive regularly questions on research related to the work of the Council, the working methods from the wider membership, were there and at the disposal of the membership of the organization for all questions related to working methods.
As I mentioned, the repertoire is meant to emphasize this linkage between the work of the wider membership and the Security Council.
While we are perhaps in regular support of council members for issues related to working methods in the framework of the IWG and other activities of the council.
But equally, we provide the research support to the wider membership.
These dashboards and the repertoire is at the disposal of, by the way, the general public, but primarily the wider membership, and also I wanted to use this opportunity to emphasize and reiterate that we're always at the disposal, we receive regularly those requests, and we hope to provide timely and detailed feedback on the questions raised by the wider membership.
With that, I thank you very much and I'll be disposal for any questions on the points I raised.
Perfect.
Thank you so much.
Am.
Perfect.
I know it's been a long day for everyone and thank you, Abbott for doing an amazing job with the presentation.
It was very interesting.
So now is the last Q&A, if there's any questions and answers, please don't hesitate to raise your hand.
Thank you.
Yes, please.
Thank you so much for your presentation, Ahmed, good to see you.
I'm Sophie Grandin with the permanent Mission of Liberia.
I know you put the slide up, but I actually couldn't see what it said.
Just as a matter of fun fact for us, how has the practice evolved over time in terms of how often did the council meet back in the days when it was first established versus now? That would be very interesting to know.
Thank you so much.
Perfect.
Thank you so much for your question.
We could take one or two more questions, if that's fine with you.
Is there any additional questions from the room? Yes, please.
Go ahead.
I'm Marla Fz from Trinidad and Tobago again.
You had mentioned the repertoire and it's from 2018 is supposed to be on a yearly basis.
So if I'm to understand correctly, it's just those particular decisions or anything to do with the Security Council that happened in that particular year from 2018.
And then the annual highlights paper will serve as a compliment to that because it also speaks to things that may have happened previous to that particular year.
Is there any compendium that covers from the start to the current year in one publication, so to speak? Perfect.
Thank you so much for your question.
We can take one additional question if there's any additional questions, comments? No.
Perfect.
A, we can start with these two questions.
Yes.
Thank you very much.
I'll start with I brought back the slide on the meetings.
I think also council members, often those who follow the public meetings, very often allude to the fact that there has been a clear and noticeable increase of the number of meetings with the years and very often even a point raised public by many council members that there is an increase versus sometimes not equivalent increase in the decision stake.
And so but the purpose of these charts, they follow these trends and demonstrate them clearly.
So I think looking at the charts 1946-2025, I think it's really clear that we have a considerable increase in terms of the meetings held by the council.
I mean, meetings, both in forms of meetings and consultations.
But if we look at the early years of the council and the 1960s versus what we have now in the 2020s, I think there is almost tripling or tripling in terms of the number of meetings.
The interpretation of that can differ from one person to another why this is the reason.
But this is also important to provide those research tools because they provide the facts, the pure facts and as I mentioned, the first slide, very often the interpretation is left to the reader or to the person who has this information, but we try to avoid is taking our own position, but presenting the facts as they are.
The fact is there has been a considerable increase in terms of the meeting and as I mentioned, not necessarily an equivalent increase in terms of the decisions taken.
This is of course related topics, the number of meetings and the discussions held.
But just to confirm that the question raised, yes, indeed, and I think the chart in that regard is very clear and self explanatory.
I'll go back to the slide on the on the question on the repertoire the annual highlights paper.
Just go back.
Because it's just important for me to.
On the repertoire itself, it is the compendium of a certain year.
As I mentioned, it is based on the official documents, but these official documents cover different aspects, the letters that have been circulated, brought to the attention of the council, the briefings that have been provided.
So many of those documents are in reality the discussions.
They provide the complete compendium of the work of the council in a given year.
But only focusing on that year.
It's not comparing to the previous years or any trend or any statistical trends that we can see.
It's really focusing on those years by the different parts and as I mentioned, aligned as much as possible to the chapters of the charter itself.
For instance, on regional arrangements, I'll just take an example on part eight.
What were the discussions on regional arrangements that took place and decision adopted by the council? And different positions expressed during the discussions that preceded the voting.
This is what we provided through the repertoire as a real compendium, as much as comprehensive as we can, but based on all available public documents of the council.
Covering all those aspects as I mentioned, that go in terms of the relations with the other organs, but functions and power of the council, all aspects really of the work of the council in a given year, but focusing on that year solely and specifically, in a way that is meant to be the compendium of that year.
On the other hand, the annual highlights paper is covering different aspects of the work of the council and the practice, but there is the comparison with the previous years, which aims at providing as much as possible, the possible comparison in terms of the trends and analysis in that perspective.
I'll go back as an example of what we provided the voting on draft resolutions.
It takes sometimes a period of ten years, 20 given, according to the topic itself and the trends analyzed and provides a statistical evolution and development of the work of the council in that aspect.
It is meant to complement the repertoire because the repertoire is focusing on all aspects of a given year, but as you can see, a year is long enough with different debates, discussions, so it's long enough, but it doesn't allow if we open the repertoire, which is unrealistic and not the purpose, even according to the resolution the General Assembly It's really the year, not the comparison with the different years in the past.
This is the complementary aspect of the annual highlights paper where we provide statistical data and analysis in comparison with previous years, providing as much as possible visibility to the different trends and the working methods of the council.
I hope it answered the question.
Are you hearing? Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I understand what you're seeing in terms of the differences between the two documents.
But I just remembering that some of the issues may not have been touched in some years.
Let's say if you want to do some research on a particular issue that may not have come up in the last five years.
I may have had a decision or even being considered.
How do you is there any modality or any function because it's online as well, that you could extrapolate that information if you want to go back past what didn't happen in the last five years, any research people or anything like that.
A and again, many of these will be happy, of course, to assist if there is a request for a mistake, but if a person, I would say even an individual is looking for that information.
This is why the different parts of the reporter are available online and sometimes groups, one can research by one part through the different years.
For instance, again, just an example, rearrangements if there is a specific point that's not necessarily repeated every year, but we have part eight for many years that can be researched through the online available research modality that then can help retrieving this information through different supplements of the repertoire.
Not necessarily available because again, topics can differ and a certain point can differ from one year to the other.
For issues that are not consistent in terms of not looking at statistical meetings, decisions, et cetera, but it can be a specific topic or an issue as we currently put it, it will have to be through a research of the different supplements of the repertoire.
But given their availability now online on the website and again divided into different parts thematically, this is meant to help then the research through keywords that can be looked at online in our website.
Thank you.
Again, we're always at the disposal if there is a specific question and we receive it sometimes and we're very happy to provide ourselves that feedback based on our work.
Thank you.
Perfect.
Thank you so much for your question.
We are 15 minutes ahead of schedule, so we can take one or two last questions in case there's any last questions you'd like to ask, please don't hesitate to seize the opportunity.
Perfect.
Well, I don't see there's any additional questions.
It's been a very long day, so thank you so much for staying the entire day with us.
I would like to thank you once again, Ahmed, for your time for joining us one year again for this activity and thank you for your interesting and informative presentation.
Really appreciate it and for sharing your experience and amazing work that you and your team do.
So thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you all of you as well for your valuable contributions and rich discussions.
It was a pleasure having you today with us.
I just wanted to say the concluding remarks before we let you go.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends.
This brings us to the close of a truly en reaching first day.
Today's session has given us a robust and practical understanding of the institutional, procedural, and operational dimensions of the Security Council.
I hope these insights will serve you well in your work and engagement with the council.
I wish to express my deep and sincere gratitude to His Excellency, Ambassador R Vines and his team, the permanent Mission of Portugal for their leadership and generosity in organizing and hosting this briefing.
We are very grateful to Portugal's commitment to capacity building and to supporting fellow delegates across the United Nations system.
And we also wish to extend our thanks to each of our five outstanding presenters today, to the Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs for their invaluable contributions and continuing collaboration with UTR and to all of you, our dear participants for your active engagement, your thoughtful questions, and your commitment to collective learning.
Last but not least, I would also like to seize the opportunity to thank my UNR colleagues, Nial, Sophia, My, Angela, and Michelle for being the invisible hand who helped us brings today's briefing to life.
We look forward to welcome you back on Friday, 22nd May for day two of our program here in conference room eight.
Day two will bring us into session three, decision making in the council and Session four, which will revolve around broader engagement and opportunities with a distinguished group of ambassadors and political coordinators sharing their firsthand experience from serving on the council.
Thank you, everyone again and hopefully see you on Friday.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, and I appreciate it.
Thank you.