YouSaid · the spoken record

Landgren

lines on the record: 355
first: 2009-05-05
most recent: 2023-11-14
sittings or episodes: 20
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“United Nations policing faces high expectations, as mandates make clear, and an ever-toughening political environment for peace operations. Also, addressing organized crime is high-stakes work. The Council’s anticipated reflection on the future of United Nations peace operations could provide the opportunity for the Secretariat to present on, and for Member States to consider in depth, organized crime and the role of the United Nations police with other actors in supporting stabilization and longer-term peace.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“A further question is the extent to which United Nations country teams are truly able to take on the spectre of organized crime that threatens a sustainable peace — for which the Council’s engagement has provided such important political backing. United Nations police make up some 12 per cent of United Nations uniformed personnel but play critical roles the justice chain, in the protection of civilians and in interfacing with communities. I am fortunate to have worked with United Nations police officers and formed police units as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General at the United Nations Mission in Liberia between 2012 and 2015, and to have observed the work of United Nations police in Bosnia and Herzegovina when I served with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the early1990s.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“Lucrative criminality can strongly disincentivize peace, but it can be challenging for partners to agree on a context analysis; that is one lesson learned from the Hybrid Operation in Darfur. Questions for the Council here could be: where enforcement or peacekeeping action is conducted by a regional organization or a coalition authorized by the United Nations, what is the role of United Nations policing, and who will be responsible politically for taking up the sensitive issue of organized crime? In the discussion to date of enforcement by regional actors, it is not clear that there has been any discussion of the potential policing role. That would now be timely.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“Moreover, while organized crime is also a matter for development actors, the departure of United Nations peacekeepers, often when national institutions remain fragile, is a high-risk moment for the independence of the judiciary and for the security sector. Some criminal actors will view that as an opportunity. In short, the role of United Nations policing in transitions probably merits greater focus. The second circumstance that could also benefit from further Council consideration is that of the type of enforcement action discussed in the New Agenda for Peace. In situations where conflict continues, it is necessary to understand the political economy of the war — who benefits from it, and how — and to establish strategies for addressing that particular driver of conflict.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“Speaking at this meeting in 2021 (see S/PV.8901), Under-Secretary-General Lacroix pointed out that UNPOL contributes to host countries’ post-conflict transitions, noting its role in facilitating the drawdown of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur and the transition to the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan, providing interim policing, police-planning capacities and knowledge transfer. It seems vanishingly rare for United Nations police to remain on the ground once troops have left, but is it logical that they should depart at the same moment as other uniformed personnel?”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“In its adoption of resolution 2699 (2023) last month, the Council acted under Chapter VII, having determined that the situation in Haiti continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security and to stability in the region. One year earlier, on 21 October 2022, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2653 (2022), establishing a sanctions regime on Haiti whose designation criteria include engaging in or supporting criminal activities, and violence involving armed groups and criminal networks. Let me mention in that connection that the work of United Nations Panels of Experts is notably valuable in shining light on the murky topic of organized crime. There are two more peace and security contexts in which policing responses to organized crime may prove important. The first context is that of transitions.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“In Haiti, the United Nations acted robustly against gangs and gang violence, notably during the deployment of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, using its troops and police, including formed police units, as well as intelligence. In Mali, the United Nations component established a specialized serious and organized crime unit. For police actions to be effective in this sensitive area also requires a functioning and brave judiciary. In Guatemala in the 1990s, to address that, the United Nations supported bringing in external judicial capacity. Although the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti is not a United Nations police (UNPOL) mission, its task of supporting the Haitian National Police to address gang violence will benefit from United Nations experiences and lessons learned in that regard.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“The Security Council has highlighted the important role that United Nations police components can play in building the capacity of host-State policing and other law-enforcement institutions to address organized crime, particularly by supporting immigration and maritime security and crime prevention, response and investigation. The United Nations and its peace-operations partners have brought a range of policing responses to organized crime. In settings such as Timor-Leste and Kosovo, United Nations police have had executive policing mandates in which they assumed responsibility for law enforcement.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“The Council has referred to organized crime in several contexts, including the challenge that organized crime poses to State authority. Council resolutions have especially linked criminal activities to non-State armed groups. In establishing the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali in June 2013, for instance, the Council spoke of the urgency of addressing the serious threats posed by transnational organized crime in the Sahel, including its links to terrorism. Non-State actors may also compete with the State and even co-opt it as they acquire political influence. Organized crime can become embedded in State institutions. One United Nations study suggests that organized crime may be best understood as a strategy adopted by a range of conflict actors, including the State, to achieve their objectives.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“Strikingly, it notes that between 2015 and 2021 organized crime was responsible for as many deaths as all armed conflicts combined. That is what my remarks will focus on today — United Nations policing in connection with organized crime. Most United Nations peace operations, both peacekeeping and special political missions, work in environments affected by organized crime. Criminal groups can play significant spoiler roles in peace processes. Illicit activities — particularly trafficking in narcotics, gold, timber and other natural resources, armaments, human beings, financial flows and more — fuel armed groups and drive instability. Indeed, a well-known saying has it that many conflicts are now more about greed than grievance.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“Ms. Landgren: On behalf of Security Council Report, I thank you, Mr. President, for this opportunity to address the Council on United Nations policing in the context of the Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace. United Nations policing is a profoundly valuable tool in United Nations efforts to strengthen the rule of law and protect populations in vulnerable environments. It merits prominent discussion by the Security Council and the General Assembly as part of the reflection on the future of peace operations that the New Agenda for Peace recommends. The New Agenda for Peace also takes up the linkages between conflict and criminal interests in a context of resurgent inter-State conflict and the internationalization of conflicts.”
2023-11-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9475 (2023) · source
“Today’s topic amplifies the continued importance of this HIPPO recommendation. While no peace operation is expected to address every last issue, we should still, with all humility as outsiders, reflect on and speak to the full, intricate context in which these operations intervene.”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“The basis of integrating structural and societal factors into the work of peace operations is understanding — understanding not just of the history, politics and conflict of the country, but of its economy and of the levers of informal power within the society, including those elements that benefit from continued conflict or from the continued weakness of State institutions. The recommendations of the 2015 High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) remain highly relevant to devising better approaches to peace operations. The HIPPO report observed that “more often than not”, peace operations did not address “root causes and conflict drivers” effectively (S/2015/446, para. 14). It recommended that the United Nations Secretariat embrace “a more nuanced analysis of the complex drivers of the conflict” (ibid., para. 51).”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“The Security Council could invite that country, with the Secretariat and members of the United Nations country team, to present on progress in areas of the former mandate at, say, the one-year, three-year and five-year marks after mission closure. Council members could consider paying a visit to see for themselves. For example, why should there not be a Security Council visiting mission to Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, countries whose United Nations peace operations closed in 2014, 2017 and 2018, respectively?”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“The first Secretary-General’s report on transitions in United Nations peace operations, issued in late June, emphasized the efforts that are needed to safeguard the “hard-fought achievements” of peace operations and “to ensure that the follow-on presence can succeed” (S/2022/522, para. 41). Past achievements of peace operations have often been won at a cost of a decade or more of engagement, expenditure of billions of dollars, and lives of many peacekeepers lost. These investments in peace deserve to be protected. This may be an area where the Council could consider additional steps. Signalling the Security Council’s strong interest in sustained peace, and in tandem with the work of the PBC, Council members might check back in with the country concerned from time to time.”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“Matters such as a State’s financial structure and management, the impact of parallel informal power networks, the role of organized crime, and accountability issues, including corruption, can be hard to raise and to acknowledge at the national level. They are very difficult issues for Governments to own and to address. Ideally, the Council will approach these issues with hope and vision. Not every structural problem will lead to conflict. But it would be wrong to dismiss the Council’s consideration of these issues as “securitizing development”, as we sometimes hear; rather, it is part and parcel of bringing resilience-building to the forefront of peace operations.”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“When I served there, Liberia was a study in contrasts between the vast wealth derived from exploitation of its natural resources, on the one hand, and the acute deprivation of most of its population and a financial structure that had remained unchanged for a very long time, on the other hand. Members of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and Council members would tell me that this was a “development” issue. But every peace operation needs to consider all the factors that could trigger or retrigger conflict. The social and economic exclusion I observed in Liberia was also about power, inequality and mistrust of government. The Council’s language in this case helped provide an additional opening to discuss social exclusion, which was valuable.”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“The Council has frequently supported transitional justice initiatives, including in mandating peace operations in the Central African Republic and Colombia, and has explicitly associated this area of work with addressing root causes of conflict. In its concept note for an October 2021 Council meeting on diversity and State-building (S/2021/854, annex), Kenya pointed out that most situations on the Council’s agenda stem from domestic conflicts over ethnic, racial, religious, partisan, or socioeconomic identity. It noted that marginalization and exclusion of groups from political processes and from economic resources have led to violence and the formation of separatist movements. Liberia is one example of Council resolutions that cite social exclusion.”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“In Haiti, the Council has increasingly voiced concern about the deleterious effects of gang violence and other criminal activities, and it recently established a sanctions regime, while also stressing that addressing the root causes of instability in Haiti requires political solutions. Many past Council resolutions have referred to organized crime, and the Council has repeatedly made reference to corruption in Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan and Iraq, among other situations. Renewing the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, for example, the Council noted “the importance of the Government of Iraq urgently delivering meaningful reforms aimed at meeting the Iraqi people’s legitimate demands to address corruption” (resolution 2631 (2022), eighth preamblar paragraph).”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“Ms. Landgren: I thank you, Madam, for inviting me to brief the Security Council at today’s open debate. Peace operations fit for contemporary times need to devise new approaches that include responsiveness to the underlying causes and drivers of conflict. That is the ambitious framing of our discussion today because, as Ghana’s concept note (S/2022/799, annex) states, evidence suggests that unaddressed structural factors can contribute to conflict resurging during or after peace support missions. I want to focus my remarks today on the Security Council’s achievements in taking up these issues to date. The Council has moved towards greater acknowledgment of these unaddressed structural factors, including non-traditional threats, in its discussions and also in its mandating.”
2022-11-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9181 (2022) · source
“A systematic approach to Council travel should build in field trips by subsidiary body Chairs as a way of enhancing joined-up strategies at a time when sanctions have become such a contested instrument despite being one of the rare concrete means that the Council uses to influence State actions that violate the Charter of the United Nations. The Council continues to show that it has a range of tools. While those will never compensate for the political will needed to respect the Charter, working methods are a day-to-day way for every Council member — and potentially every Member State — to see this institution performing as best it can in response to a dangerous, inequitable and fast-changing world.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“There are other ways of stepping up engagement with the field: virtually, such as Council members’ recent encounters with Colombia and Yemen via virtual reality headsets, a modality still in its infancy and with considerable scope for development, and mini-missions, which at an earlier time gave the Council flexibility for speedy and direct engagement when needed. A practical suggestion here would be that the Council adopt a more systematic way of deciding on visiting missions. One possibility would be to have the Informal Working Group, at the start of the year, consult and select three possible situations that could benefit from a Council visit, which could then be supplemented by other trips.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“Security Council Report witnessed and reported on Council members’ reactions during their visit to the Lake Chad basin in March 2017, which produced resolution 2349 (2017) addressing the negative security, humanitarian and environmental dimensions of the Boko Haram crisis in the region. Council visiting missions to Colombia in May 2017 and July 2019 signalled the Council’s political support for the implementation of the 2016 Final Peace Agreement. With a growing focus on the role of regional and subregional organizations in addressing ongoing or emerging conflict within their regions, the Council might also prioritize visits to engage with them on conflict prevention in particular.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“But currently there is no shared penholding with any sanctions committee chair — individuals who follow developments in their country situations closely and are likely to have valuable insights to contribute to Council penholding. In respect of boosting trust, Council visiting missions offer a chance for members to engage with one another less formally, as well as to be exposed, together, to facts on the ground. Pre-coronavirus disease, the Council undertook four or five visiting missions a year. With travel again becoming more feasible, it is worth recalling the impact of visiting missions.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“But there was a real breakthrough in 2019 through co-penholding between a permanent member and an elected member, when Germany and the United Kingdom shared the pen on Darfur and on Libya sanctions — particularly significant as Germany also chaired the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1970 (2011) concerning Libya. Germany and the United Kingdom set an important precedent. Today the United States shares the pen with Mexico on Haiti and with Albania on Ukraine. Pen-sharing among permanent and elected members broadens ownership, builds knowledge and can contribute to more coherent Council strategies for peace, particularly when the co-pen is the chair of a relevant subsidiary body or otherwise brings in an added perspective such as regional expertise.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“These initiatives recognize the role of ownership by the wider United Nations membership in situations where the Council is deadlocked and also respond to a 2005 World Summit recommendation that the Council continue to adapt its working methods so as to increase the involvement of States that are not members of the Council in its work. It is too early to predict how this initiative will evolve, but how best to broaden ownership leads me to reflections on Council penholding, a term that does not fully convey its demanding nature of drafting, convening discussions and negotiating outcomes. Elected members share the pen on Afghanistan and the Syria humanitarian file, among others.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“Working methods may offer some bridging elements in today’s difficult context when used in ways that boost trust, build knowledge and broaden ownership. Broadening ownership of the Security Council’s work can also enhance the Council’s legitimacy. In the past year, the Council has grappled with crises that include the war in Ukraine and upheaval in Afghanistan, Haiti and a number of countries in Africa, and there have been significant steps towards broadening Member States’ ownership of and engagement with international peace and security. Resolution 2623 (2022), referring the situation in Ukraine to the General Assembly, the Council’s first “uniting for peace” resolution in four decades, was followed by General Assembly resolution 76/262, stipulating that it will meet following any veto that is cast in the Council.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“Such questions also go to the heart of SCR’s mission as an independent, impartial think tank seeking to help to advance the transparency, accountability and effectiveness of the Security Council. I thank Council members, other Member States, colleagues within the United Nations and our counterparts in civil society, without whom SCR could not work as it does. In this regard, SCR acknowledges with deep gratitude Ms. Hasmik Egian, newly retired after six years as the Director of the Security Council Affairs Division of the United Nations Secretariat (SCAD), and we add our appreciation to all SCAD colleagues for their dedicated work. I also acknowledge Ms. Loraine Sievers for her work in this field. As the founders of the United Nations knew, peace is to be made among adversaries, not among friends.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“Ms. Landgren: I thank you, Mr. President, for inviting Security Council Report (SCR) to address the Security Council in its open debate on working methods for the fifth year. Our appreciation goes to Albania and Ambassador Ferit Hoxha as Chair of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions and to all the elected Council members that have energetically fulfilled that role in decades past. In 2022, the Security Council may be the object of greater critical global focus than ever in living memory. Tough questions about the Council nonetheless reflect expectations that its members will act effectively to defend the Charter of the United Nations and to prevent and respond to violations.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“If this is the moment to underline the importance of multilateralism and the role the Council plays or to focus on a particular region, country or regional organizations, we might recall that the Council has done this in the past — in Addis Ababa, Panama, Geneva and Nairobi — but not since 2004. Since we have alluded to a number of past useful working methods, this might be one to add to that list and review.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Ms. Landgren: Let me add my sentiments to the many expressed about the sad passing of Ambassador Oshima, with whom I briefed the Security Council last year. It was very encouraging to hear the many references to the need to constantly optimize working methods as an ongoing, rather than periodic, process. One speaker talked of formalizing working methods that can withstand pandemics. Many speakers pointed to the value of both engaging with others and keeping others informed of what the Council is doing — other Member States, of course, but also the public at large. We heard several recommendations to that effect. If I could add one, it may be worth recalling the option that the Council has to meet outside New York.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“As the Council comes back to in-person meetings, the flexibility that the institution and its members showed during the COVID-19 period is important to retain. The Council can keep existing good practices, resurrect worthwhile older initiatives and continue to break new ground.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Would this not be a useful option now, for instance with the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, a new Mission, and perhaps for visits to a handful of situations not on the Council’s agenda? Council members remaining in New York could, at selected moments, join those missions virtually via video-teleconference. The Council also once asked a single member to travel on its behalf, when the late Ambassador Kenzo Oshima of Japan, as Chair of the Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations, visited Ethiopia and Eritrea in November 2005. The Council has proved that it can use the provisional rules of procedure and the Charter of the United Nations to be innovative and effective. This active use of existing tools and the ready development of new ones, need not end as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic recedes.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“These tend to be extremely costly, but also brief, with packed programmes. Late last year, one speaker at the Hitting the Ground Running workshop said that the visiting Council members “tended to be moved from the airport to conference rooms and back to the airport without adequately seeing the situation on the ground”. In past years, the Security Council has successfully deployed mini-missions of a subset of Council members. The most recent was in November 2012, when six elected Council members went to Timor- Leste just before that United Nations operation closed, spending four days in the country. That added ground time can expand possibilities for effective diplomacy.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Some elected members are about to begin the final quarter of their Council tenures without ever having benefited from a Council field trip. Well-designed field visits can strengthen Council members’ sense of ground realities, the effect of their decisions and the challenges to mandate implementation — especially important now as the United Nations seeks to strengthen the impact of Action for Peacekeeping initiative. Still, there is scope for the Council to derive more value from its field visits. The Council might consider, where possible, consolidating its own travel schedule and those of the heads of sanctions committees, other subsidiary organs and the Peacebuilding Commission for greater coherence and effectiveness. There could also be a fresh look at the need for full-scale Council visiting missions.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Procedural votes, which require a formal meeting, have not been held during meetings held via video- teleconference. Council members may wish to give serious consideration to ways of enabling procedural votes and to treating video-teleconference meetings as official. In March 2020, monthly letters from the President became the vehicle for communicating the Council’s agreed interim working methods. These letters, in themselves a new tool, reflect the critical role the Council President can play in shaping better ways of working. As in-person meetings and travel resume, perhaps nothing will be more pressing than live engagement with peace operations and other situations of concern. It has been 20 months since the last Council visiting mission.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Did the Council’s innovations in any way limit its ability to deliver on its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security? During these 15 months, the Council did not add any new agenda items. The decision to designate VTC meetings as informal meetings may have imposed some unintended constraints on Council processes. Voting on resolutions, a feature of formal meetings, has been encumbered with a written procedure. The accompanying oral explanations of vote, a boon to Council transparency, have been eliminated. Closed consultations, intended to permit frank discussion and to avoid prepared statements, appear, in general, to have taken on heightened formality, and the use of press elements to keep the public informed, which had a strong start in March 2020, appears to have dwindled.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Key among them was whether VTC meetings would be considered official meetings of the Council. If they were not considered official, Security Council Report asked, how would the Council perform certain essential tasks, such as adopting resolutions to renew mandates that would otherwise expire? The Council quickly found ways to perform its most essential tasks. It renewed mission and sanctions mandates, even establishing a new peace operation, while holding briefings and debates on its agenda items. VTCs made all that possible and at times made it easier. Over the past year of Council VTCs, technical malfunctions have become fewer and users more proficient. The level of security risk perceived to be present in the Council’s digital platforms may be ripe for reassessment.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Daily agendas and draft resolutions are now circulated electronically, in a fine example of environmental awareness. Digital platforms have truly shown their value to the Council. At the same time, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions struck at the heart of international diplomacy, leaving Council members without face-to- face negotiations and the myriad informal opportunities to explore possible ways forward, where personal relationships deepen and trust can develop. The new Council best practice may be found in hybrid working methods that balance the remote with the proximate. At the end of March 2020, Security Council Report observed that while numerous technical difficulties had gradually been resolved, some fundamental procedural challenges had arisen.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“That month, faced with a mounting pandemic and its brutal impact on New York City, the Security Council acted decisively in agreeing on interim working methods. By so doing, the Security Council was true to Article 28 of the Charter of the United Nations and quickly resumed meeting continuously — the first of the principal organs, aside from the Secretariat, to get back to business. The Security Council’s rapid agreement on new ways to work was historic. Those ground-breaking arrangements have now been tested for 15 months. Members have found that video-teleconference (VTC) meetings can save considerable time. More ministers and Heads of Government join and preside over Council open debates. Subsidiary body meetings are never constrained by a lack of meeting rooms.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Ms. Landgren: It is a privilege for Security Council Report to be invited to brief the Security Council. Security Council Report’s aim is to contribute in an informed and impartial manner to the Council’s effectiveness, transparency and accountability. Let me acknowledge the work of Ambassador Rhonda King of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in presiding over the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions, as well as the role of Estonia as Vice-Chair. I also want to pay tribute to Loraine Sievers, co-author of the fourth edition of The Procedure of the UN Security Council. It is a particular pleasure to be present in the Security Council Chamber in a week when all but one of the meetings of the Council and its subsidiary bodies will be held in person for the first time since mid-March 2020.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Members will find additional practical proposals in SCR's recent report, "Is Christmas Really Over? Improving the Mandating of Peace Operations". Finally, as a former Special Representative of the Secretary-General, let me say how valuable it is to have a resolution with meaningful language and the entire Council lined up behind it. In 2018, however, four missions had their mandates adopted non-unanimously; this year, the tally already stands at three. A great deal can be achieved through adaptation of the Council's working methods. In these testing times, the challenge is to use the tools creatively and flexibly, contributing to a culture where better and more consultative decisions can be taken.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“Active coordination and the revived use of mini-missions could give such trips greater strategic impact, while reducing overall costs. Still on prevention, while Arria Formula meetings cannot substitute for formal Council meetings, used strategically they can frame debate and even generate political initiatives on fragile situations and issues that the Council finds itself unable to discuss. Wherever possible, the Council should strengthen informal formats that allow for conflict prevention discussions. It is widely acknowledged that mandate consultations do not always focus on political strategy, even though political strategy should drive the design of peace operations. Better mandating engages several working methods, of which the most important are keeping discussions interactive, direct, operational and focused on political strategy.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“Turning to initiatives for strengthening the Council's role in preventing deadly conflict and in peacekeeping, the Council has used visiting missions to good effect, including to countries not on its agenda - most recently, Burkina Faso. Field visits are valuable; members come away with a different sense of local dynamics, of how mandates are implemented in practice, and of the work of the United Nations country team, which is deeply involved in addressing development- and governance-related causes of conflict, but whose members rarely interact with the Security Council. These visits have occasionally been used with a preventive intent. Field visits are also phenomenally expensive, and they are rarely coordinated with field travel undertaken by the Council's subsidiary bodies, including the Peacebuilding Commission.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“Other ways for Member State engagement to reinforce Council accountability would be more analytical and interactive monthly Council presidency wrap-up sessions. As well, Member States with a particular interest in a given situation - which may already participate in public discussions under Article 31 of the Charter of the United Nations - could be invited to meet with the Council in a more private setting, such as the informal interactive dialogue format. The tools are available. And meanwhile, in a further form of Member State engagement, regional organizations continue to develop their relationship with the Council, refining their efforts to feed in concerted perspectives.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“That was linked to the Council's accountability to the wider membership and to the transparency of its work. Wider Member State engagement in the Council's work could include more interaction around the annual report that the Security Council submits for the General Assembly's consideration. It is due in the spring; this timing is optimal for an engaged and well-prepared debate. This year, and in the past two years, summer has arrived with no report. And yet, the discussion of the annual report is a primary format through which the wider membership can underline its views and expectations of the Security Council. Perhaps this reporting process can be elevated. One suggestion has been that the Secretary-General take part.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“The Council, they argued, should also make better use of the expertise of the chairs of specific sanctions committees - these chairs being an obvious choice as co-penholders on the related issues. Since January, an elected member is co-penholder on Darfur; additionally, the elected member chairing the Committee established pursuant to resolution 1970 (2011) concerning Libya is a co-penholder for sanctions issues on Libya. These are modest changes, but a step towards more equitable distribution of work and towards a more participatory process around addressing country situations on the Council's agenda. Process affects outcomes, and as far back as 2005, leaders at the World Summit recommended that the Security Council continue to adapt its working methods so as to increase the involvement in its work of States not members of the Council.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“Since the adoption of the most recent note 507 (S/2017/507), in 2017, stellar work has been done to enhance the readiness of incoming Council members, which can now observe Council meetings from October onwards and which often start preparing early, drawing on a range of capacity-building support, including from my own organization. The elected members (E-10), have found common ground on several working methods. In late 2018, for the first time, the E-10 joined with the incoming five to write to the Council presidency seeking greater burden- sharing among all members in chairing the Council's subsidiary bodies. Until now, that task has gone primarily to the elected members.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“SCR has published four research reports on Council working methods. Our work is made possible through our good working relationships with, among others, Security Council members, other Member States and United Nations colleagues across the system. I thank them all. Today's acute challenges include declining trust worldwide in multilateral institutions and the Council's persistent failure to prevent or respond adequately to several serious conflicts. I will look at working methods in this context, through three sets of actions: the strengthened role of elected Council members, deepening the Council's engagement with the wider membership, and measures to enhance the Council's mandating of peace operations and preventive actions.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source
“Ms. Landgren: It is a please to address the Security Council on behalf of Security Council Report (SCR). SCR acknowledges the dedicated work of Kuwait, now in its second year under Ambassador Alotaibi as the Chair of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions, and the intense commitment of the Working Group's members. Small Changes can be potent. The Council has steadily, if slowly, improved aspects of its working methods. In 2007, Slovakia - then Chair ofthe Informal Working Group - proposed to hold an open debate on Council working methods. It was too controversial to implement. Now, the open debate on this item is an annual event. Security Council Report is an independent think tank, reporting on the work of the Council in the interests of Council transparency, accountability and effectiveness.”
2019-06-06 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8539 (2019) · source