YouSaid · the spoken record

Sievers

lines on the record: 24
first: 2021-06-16
most recent: 2022-06-28
sittings or episodes: 2
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

“And, effective implementation requires not merely the acquiescence of States Members of the United Nations, but their active engagement. Although many factors determine the level of Member States’ support for Council decisions, when opacity seems to surround how the Council works, this can add to a sense of mistrust, and even illegitimacy. On the other hand, even in divisive times such as these, if the Council is seen as making a good faith effort to give clarity to its working methods, this can help foster a more cooperative partnership with the wider membership.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“Only 3 out of 12 assessments were published in 2016, and it has been a struggle ever since. Today I appeal to all present Council members to return to the letter and spirit of the 1997 presidential note, so that publication can return to 100 per cent. I realize battle lines can be drawn within the Council even over such relatively small measures. But taking steps such as these can represent an acknowledgment that the Council’s working methods do make this body hard to follow and can also signal a willingness to address this problem. Why is this important? The Security Council cannot succeed on its own. As we pointed out in the “Concluding reflections” chapter of our book, it is important to keep in mind that the end goal of the Council is to adopt effective decisions that are effectively implemented.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“And while on the subject of the assessments, I would like to offer an important clarification. These assessments were launched in 1997 by presidential note S/1997/451. The note states that the assessments are prepared by Council members “under their own responsibility” and “should not be considered as representing the views of the Council”. That the assessments are published in national capacity was clearly understood during the first 18 years of implementing this note. With only two exceptions, there was a 100 per cent publication rate. But the situation changed dramatically in 2015 when some Council members, apparently unaware of the presidential note, contended that assessments must be agreed by consensus. With the advent of this misunderstanding, the fulfilment rate plummeted.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“And they are tracked on the Security Council website. Including Arria Formula metings on the calendar — with a suitable explanation — would give a more accurate picture of how members overall address matters relevant to the Council. I am aware that some Council members oppose including these other meetings in the calendar. But when those following the Council perceive that the information that it publishes on its own work programme is incomplete, they turn instead to other sources, and I believe this undercuts the Council’s credibility. A third way to throw more light on the Council’s working methods would be for each Council member to accord them greater coverage during their end-of- presidency wrap-up session. Finally, matters of procedure could be given more detailed attention in each monthly presidency assessment.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“In its early years, the calendar indicated only Council activities published in the Journal of the United Nations, that is, formal meetings and closed consultations. But that criterion has eroded over time, with the calendar now including such unofficial activities as political coordinator meetings. I therefore believe that it is now justified to include in the calendar informal interactive dialogues, especially since these are a Council event chaired by the president. It is understood that Arria Formula meetings are not Council events, because they are convened by individual Council members without needing the support of the Council as a whole. But Arria Formula meetings have become an important part of how Council members interact with the wider United Nations membership, civil society and each other.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“The IWG annual reports will therefore be useful in bringing into public view this wider scope of Council members’ efforts to improve working methods. I would suggest that Council members consider also including in the IWG reports an indication of any important procedural matters that occur over the year in the Security Council itself, such as procedural votes or formulation of new agenda items. During General Assembly debates on the Council’s annual report, some States have called for procedural developments to be covered in the report’s introduction. But because that suggestion has appeared to be impractical, the IWG report might provide a viable alternative. Secondly, I wish to voice support for proposals to make the Council’s monthly programme of work fully comprehensive.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“And that can mean that, even when the Council is conducting its business in plain view, how it works is often not fully understood. So today I would like to comment on four Council tools that I believe could be beneficially expanded to address this situation. First, I consider it a very positive development that the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions — chaired this year by Albania — has decided to begin issuing annual reports, as is done by the Council’s other thematic working groups. At present, the IWG is mainly known for negotiating presidential notes on working methods, but its contribution is far broader. It also considers significant working-method issues that do not result in presidential notes and monitors implementation of existing notes.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“It stems from the fact that the Security Council, over its 76-year history, has developed a highly complex body of precedent and interpretation with regard to applicable Charter articles and procedure. There are now, for example, six International Court of Justice advisory opinions with direct bearing on how the Council operates. In addition, as the concept note for this debate indicates, since 2017 the Council has adopted 14 presidential notes on working methods, which together comprise 168 operative paragraphs. And then there are the countless modalities, such as putting a draft resolution into blue, which have never been put into writing. That complicated context within which the Council functions is largely unknown.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“All of us should read the Charter more often, and more closely, than we do. But some of the resulting proposals highlight the fact that the Security Council of today faces two different problems of transparency. The first is the one with which we are all acquainted. It is the issue of how much of its proceedings the Council conducts in a visible, public way and how much of its work is conducted in private. And it is the present Council members who have full control over how to strike that balance between public and private. But the second problem of transparency is not of the 2022 Security Council’s making. Rather, it is an inherited problem.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“Ms. Sievers: I appreciate the invitation to participate in today’s open debate. As pointed out in the concept note (S/2022/499, annex), this meeting is taking place at a time when geopolitical challenges have led to heightened levels of fragmentation within the Security Council. Those challenges have placed the Council under intense scrutiny within the Organization, but also among the media, academic circles, civil society groups and the wider public. And that scrutiny has extended not only to the Council’s substantive work, but to its methodologies and tools as well. In particular, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led large numbers of people to open the Charter of the United Nations and read what the powers of the Security Council actually are. That is, of course, a positive development.”
2022-06-28 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9079 (2022) · source
“I also wish to pay tribute to the work of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions. At this point, with the combined operative paragraphs of S/2017/507 and the eight presidential notes that were adopted at the end of 2019, there are 154 paragraphs that need careful attention. This represents a great deal of work and is expensive. At the same time, the Informal Working Group is trying to make progress. I think we can all admit, to some extent, that the low-hanging fruit has been picked and the more difficult issues are now before the Group. I also want to express my gratitude for the kind words offered in relation to my briefing and my book, The Procedure of the UN Security Council.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Ms. Sievers: I wish to echo Ambassador King’s statement about how important these annual working methods open debates are. I think that this time, in particular, having been through such unusual conditions over the past year, there have been a number of statements that indicate a very fresh look at how the Security Council has been conducting its work. I think we are all convinced that it is not going to be a return to business as usual from now on. One of the things that struck me in today’s comments is that the role of the President has been seen as critical during the pandemic interim period. In that connection, there were some interesting suggestions on how the role of the President can continue to be strengthen, not only individually, but in cooperation with other presidencies.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“I share that respect and I look forward to seeing how the Council will translate the lessons learned into the next phase of its work.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“This has been a lengthy explanation, but I felt it was important to confirm that the rules of procedure that govern the conduct of official meetings — the rules of procedure that are of greatest relevance to Council members as they return to in-person meetings — are valid. Those rules of procedure can be applied and relied upon as currently written. In conclusion, the General Assembly considered the Council’s 2020 annual report (A/75/2) on 11 June. There was a fair amount of criticism over the reduced access of non-Council Member States to the Council under its interim working methods. Yet, widespread respect was expressed for the agility with which the Council had ensured business continuity during the pandemic.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“To attend to them would require a thorough and potentially divisive review. For that reason, whereas up to 1982 seven amendments were adopted in resolutions and incorporated directly into the rules of procedure, in 1993 and 2019 the Council was able to agree amendments only through the issuance of presidential notes, with the changes not yet reflected in the rules of procedure themselves. While I think many would concur that updating the rules of procedure would be beneficial, given the number of contentious substantive issues currently before the Council I am not sure that trying to revise the rules at this time would give an optimal result. Pending such an exercise, however, the reassuring fact is that the rules in need of modernization relate mainly to documentation.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“It was for that reason that when the rules were published, the word “provisional” was retained. It was merely a political signal to indicate that although the Council had adopted the rules of procedure, it intended to revisit the outstanding voting issues. By the 1950s, those voting issues had been resolved by practice on a case-by-case basis. But the word “provisional” remained in the title and over the years, the fact that the rules of procedure had been adopted in 1946 began to be forgotten by many. Of course, the misunderstanding about the legal status of the rules of procedure could be set to rest if the Council were to agree to remove the word “provisional” from the title. However, reopening the rules of procedure to do so would undoubtedly raise the issue of some rules that over the years have become outmoded.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“According to the leading legal treatises on the Charter of the United Nations, the Council’s rules therefore have the same legal standing as those of the General Assembly and the other principal organs of the United Nations. The question then arises: Why does the word “provisional” remain in the title when that word was removed from the rules of procedure of the other principal organs after their adoption? The reason is that the Council remained stuck on one issue that did not confront the other principal organs — the unique voting arrangements set out for the Council in Article 27 of the Charter. Reflecting Cold War tensions, Council members could not agree on the extent to which the voting arrangements should be spelled out in its rules of procedure.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“The misunderstanding arises when people assume that the word “provisional” means “draft” and conclude that the rules of procedure have never been adopted, but rather exist as loose guidelines that can be set aside casually at the caprice of Council members. That assumption has done unnecessary damage to the Council’s reputation. That the rules of procedure have never been adopted is not true. They were initially adopted at the Security Council’s first meeting, so that the Council could begin its official work. And then from April through June 1946, the Council adopted revisions and the rules of procedure were considered sufficiently complete to publish them under the symbol “S/96”, which is the symbol they still carry today, as document S/96/Rev.7.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“That is the fact that for all official meetings, the Council’s provisional rules of procedure apply. Beneficially, under the rules procedural disagreements can be resolved through procedural votes. That contrasts to meetings not deemed official — including, to date, the VTCs held during the COVID-19 pandemic — for which virtually all procedural decisions require consensus, which occasionally has created delays or even blockages. Operating without the rules of procedure for so many months has given Council members a new appreciation of them. Nonetheless, in recent years those rules have been under the shadow of a misunderstanding because their title still retains the word “provisional”. I would like to take this opportunity to bring clarity to that issue.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“A fourth option may be a background note by the Secretariat, similar to the one on Arria Formula meetings, which, with the agreement of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions, was read into the record by the Chair at a formal Council meeting and then included in the Security Council handbooks published by Japan. Irrespective of the format followed, should the Council agree to create a record, it would seem desirable to convey that, although the pandemic working methods are a product of consensus, some Council members proposed additional or alternative modalities that have not been agreed but that may merit future consideration. I would now like to raise an important matter relating to the return to in-person meetings.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“The first option would be a note by the President of the Security Council that distils into a single document the most up-to-date elements of the letters from the President of the Security Council. A second option would be to adopt stand-alone notes by the President on individual working methods, which would apply both in times of restrictions and under regular conditions. A third option may be to follow the model of the 1996 Wisnumurti guidelines or the 2017 Bessho letter, contained in document S/2017/93. In both cases, a Security Council representative, in his individual capacity, drafted a reference document on the process for nominating the Secretary-General.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“It was therefore essential that by the end of March 2020, the Council agreed to a written voting procedure, as set out in the letter from the President of the Security Council (S/2020/253). That procedure has perhaps been unduly time-consuming and convoluted and could benefit from further refinement. But what is most important is that it met the necessary requirements of legality and verifiability. There are now 16 letters from the President of the Security Council on the Council’s pandemic working methods. Some have carried forward what was previously agreed, while others reflect new elements, especially evolving practice with respect to video- teleconferences (VTCs). Therefore, one question now is whether the Security Council should consolidate those working methods as a reference for the future. There are several options.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Ambassador King gave an insightful briefing on how the Security Council has approached business continuity during the pandemic. Last year, the most pressing issue for the Council was how to adopt resolutions. The Council was obliged to halt in-person meetings after 12 March 2020, and yet two mandates required renewal by the end of that month. A particular difficulty faced by the Council was that, whereas, according to the Charter of the United Nations, General Assembly resolutions are recommendations, Security Council resolutions, depending on their wording, are binding decisions. For that reason, any alternative to in-person voting would have to bear up to rigorous legal scrutiny.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source
“Ms. Sievers: I wish to express my appreciation for having been invited to participate as a briefer in today’s open debate. I would like to add my voice to your tribute, Mr. President, and to that of the Chair of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions to Professor Edward Luck and Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, who both made exceptional contributions to the work of the Security Council and were wonderful people. The theme of this year’s open debate is well chosen. During this transition phase, it is important to assess how the Security Council has responded to the challenges of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions not only to discern best practices for future situations, but also to identify those pandemic working methods that may merit being carried forward into more normal times.”
2021-06-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8798 (2021) · source