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| Picture credit: United Nations |
The Security Council is the United Nations' most powerful body. It has "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security." Five powerful countries sit as "permanent members" along with ten other member states, elected for two-year terms. Since 1990, the Council has dramatically increased its activity and it now meets in nearly continuous session. It dispatches military operations, imposes economic sanctions, mandates arms inspections, deploys human rights and election monitors and more. The materials available here provide analysis and documents about the Council and the sharp debate about Council reform, as well as information about the NGO Working Group on the Security Council.
Dan Sarooshi, Professor of Law in Oxford University has written a diagnostic article on the Security Council. His article provides very useful general background on the Security Council. Also see the Security Council background provided by the UN website. The Security Council functions on the basis of five permanent and ten elected members. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are the permanent members. The ten elected members, known as "non-permanent" members in official terminology, are elected by the General Assembly. Here we list Council members, profile of ambassadors, presidencies and sanctions committees and we follow elections from 1996 to the present.
The Security Council is part parliament, part secret diplomatic conclave. Its procedures and working methods can be puzzling and mysterious. While the Council votes on its decisions in public meetings, it spends much of its time in private informal consultations, where ambassadors discuss, negotiate, persuade and pressure their colleagues, far from television crews and newspaper reporters and beyond the view of the rest of the UN's member states as well. GPF has gathered useful information on how the Security Council works. The Council follows a program of work set out by its elected President. The Presidency rotates among all Council Members on a monthly basis.
The UN keeps track of Security Council resolutions and documents, press statements and monthly reports of the Security Council presidents, as well as the "Repertoire" which is the only analytical record of the practices of the Security Council and includes the Provisional Rules of Procedure. GPF has collected data on the special Security Council missions which travel to crisis regions and the different types of meetings of the Council. Including a section on informal consultations where the Council conducts most of its business.
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| Picture Credit: United Nations |
In exercising its powers in resolving international conflicts, the Security Council imposes sanctions to enforce international law. GPF highlights the debate on sanctions and includes many documents proposing ways to make sanctions more effective, better "targeted," and more humane. Another method employed by the Security Council involves the deployment of Peacekeeping missions to conflict and post-conflict zones. GPF looks at the lessons from past UN peacekeeping experiences, the rise of regional peacekeeping operations, offers reform proposals, and discusses the role and future of peacekeeping operations.
Natural resources often lie at the heart of wars and civil strife. This page provides information on the role of natural resources in conflict; including specific information on oil, water, diamonds, timber and minerals, as well as key NGO reports on these issues. In the same vein, small arms and light weapons fuel civil wars facilitate the use of children in armed conflict and cause harm to millions of people. This page looks at the role of small arms and light weapons in conflict, as well as UN efforts to block small arms flows.
Though many states favor Security Council reform, this conservative body moves very slowly. The five permanent members prefer a status quo that favors them, with only cosmetic changes. This section assembles extensive information about Council reform, addressing issues of transparency and working methods, and membership expansion and representation. James Paul and Céline Nahory have written an insightful analysis on how the UN Security Council could be reformed.
One of the key issues sparking calls for reform centres on the power of the Veto. The five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) enjoy the privilege of veto power. This power has been intensely controversial since the drafting of the UN Charter in 1945. The United States and Russia would probably not have accepted the creation of the United Nations without the veto privilege. Fifty years later, the debate on the existence and use of the veto continues, reinvigorated by many cases of veto-threat as well as actual veto use. This page follows the issue, and provides data and a comprehensive list of all the vetoes cast and the subjects vetoed in the Security Council since 1945.
In the late 1990's, Security Council members began an active dialogue with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as a result of which the NGO Working Group on the Security Council meets regularly with Council Ambassadors. GPF provides information on the NGO Working Group on the Security Council and explores the relationship between NGOs and the Security Council.
GPF provides a list of general issues and debates on the Security Council, many original tables and charts on Security Council issues and links to various organizations and websites on the UN Security Council and various aspects of its work.
