General Assembly Session 53 meeting 40

The President

I call on the President of the Security Council, His Excellency Sir Jeremy Greenstock, to introduce the report of the Security Council.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock (United Kingdom)

It is a privilege for me, Sir, to be called upon to address the General Assembly under your presidency and to follow in the footsteps of many distinguished predecessors from a wide range of Member States, including my own, in introducing the annual report of the Security Council, covering the period from 16 June 1997 to 15 June 1998.

The members of the Security Council continue to attach great importance to the timely preparation and submission of this annual report in accordance with the provisions of Articles 15 and 24 of the Charter. As in previous years, the report was issued to all Member States in draft and was adopted at a public meeting of the Security Council. The members of the Security Council also took care to submit the report to the Assembly in good time before the start of the general debate on 21 September. The members of the Council remain indebted to the Security Council secretariat for their hard work and professionalism in contributing to this, and for their unstinting efforts on so many other matters throughout the course of the year.

As the annual report for this period makes clear, the Security Council has had another very busy year. This does not in itself demonstrate high productivity, but rather reflects the many problems related to the maintenance of international peace and security with which the Council has had to deal. During the period under review, the Council held over 100 formal meetings, adopted 61 resolutions and agreed upon 41 statements by its President. The subject matter of the questions before the Council remains as wide-ranging as ever. The situation in Africa occupied much of the time of the Council, and was considered as a general item in its own right. But the report of the Council, which records the consideration of issues arising also in Asia, Europe, Australasia and Central America, shows that peace and security issues are not confined to any one geographical region. It is also noteworthy that the Council has considered certain aspects of peace and security from a global perspective, for example its consideration of protection for humanitarian assistance to refugees and others in conflict situations, and of the role of civilian police and other aspects of peacekeeping operations. I am sure that today's debate in the Assembly, which is an important event as part of the process of dialogue between the Assembly and the Security Council, will deal not just with the history and the statistics but also with the substance of some of these issues.

May I comment on the format and composition of this report, which shows some significant developments in comparison with its predecessors. The members of the Council have taken careful note of the need to enhance the transparency of the Council, a concept which applies not only to the way in which the Council carries on its work, but also to the way in which that work is reported and recorded. It has long been a concern of many members of the Organization that the analytical nature of this report should be enhanced. In response to those concerns, the President of the Security Council set out new guidelines for the content of the report in a note of 12 June 1997 (S/1997/451). That decision is reflected for the first time in the report before us today.

Members will have noted that, in accordance with that decision, this year's report includes, as background, a descriptive list of the decisions, resolutions and presidential statements of the Council for the year preceding the period which is covered. For the 16 June 1997 to 15 June 1998 period covered by the report, the report now includes, for each item of substance, a description in chronological order of the consideration by the Council of the subject and of the actions taken by the Council on that item, including descriptions of the decisions, resolutions and presidential statements, and a list of communications received by the Council and of reports from the Secretary-General. It also includes information on the dates of formal meetings and informal consultations, on which subjects were discussed, on the work of subsidiary organs including the sanctions committees, on the documentation and working methods and procedures of the Council, and on matters brought to the attention of the Council but not discussed by it in the period covered. The appendices now include full texts of all the resolutions, decisions and statements adopted or voted upon by the Council during this period, together with information about meetings with troop-contributing countries. All in all, the intention of these changes is to make the report more comprehensive and easier to use, and to set out a more detailed record of the work of the Council during the past year.

Another significant development is the inclusion in this report, for the first time, of brief assessments of the work of the Council prepared by representatives who had completed their functions as President of the Council. These assessments were prepared by each President under his own responsibility, though they were prepared in consultation with the other members of the Council for the month during which he presided. They do not represent the views of the Council as such, and naturally each report reflects in some respects the individual perceptions of each President. But members of the Council believe this new approach is one which is helpful and informative and which will provide a useful insight into the substance of the work of the Council during the course of the year.

Although this report of the Council is, for these reasons, rather fuller than those of previous years, I must recall that it is not intended as a substitute for the official records of the Security Council, which provide a more substantive account of the Council's deliberations. The report should be read, for the purposes of this discussion in the General Assembly, in conjunction with other official documents of the Council, to which it constitutes a reference guide.

Finally, Mr. President, I would like to assure you and all the members of this Assembly that the members of the Council will listen attentively to the debate which is being held today. As in previous years, members of the Council value this opportunity for a dialogue, and will give careful consideration to the points which are put forward.

Mr. Kastrup (Germany)

For the fifty-third time, the Security Council is presenting an annual report to the General Assembly. As in previous years, Germany welcomes this presentation. The report is the result of enormous efforts made by the Secretariat staff to give the general membership more than a rough idea of the work of the Council and the issues the Council dealt with between June 1997 and June 1998. Let me seize this opportunity to thank all those involved in this time-consuming endeavour.

At the same time, the report also seems to be a strong indication that far more efforts are needed to bring about a comprehensive reform of the Organization. Of course, everybody knows that the report of the Council is only one element of the badly and urgently needed overall reform of the Security Council.

Allow me to elaborate on these points in more detail and in the following sequence: first, workload and effectiveness of the Council; secondly, innovative elements in this year's report; and thirdly, the necessity to aim at more comprehensive reform measures.

With regard to workload and effectiveness of the Council, the report reflects the enormous workload of the Council in the past 12 months. The numbers have been mentioned by the President of the Council. Among other things, the activities of the Security Council considered by the report cover wide areas of conflict, mostly in, but not limited to Africa. The former Yugoslavia, Georgia and Tajikistan also figured on the agenda, as did Asian countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia. The report uses more than 300 pages to cover these and other questions, without counting the 48 additional pages which reflect the monthly assessments of the respective Presidents of the Council. Altogether this adds up to over 60 pages more than last year's report. In other words, the report, whose drafting apparently absorbs a great deal of time and effort, has again grown considerably.

I really wonder how many of us might have read every single page of the report or at least substantial selected parts of it. The report undoubtedly has its merits as a reference document. However, the question remains of whether it could be done in a more comprehensive, more effective and less time- and paper-consuming manner.

I would now like to address the innovative elements in this year's report. There can hardly be any doubt that the innovative elements in this year's report are the monthly assessments of the work of the Council, which have been included as an addendum to the report. The assessments represent the reaction of the Council to the requests for a more analytical report which Germany and many other countries have made repeatedly in the past. The inclusion of the assessments deserves broad applause. It is a new effort to add life to a routine exercise and, like many new efforts, it had a rather slow start. Germany would like to encourage all future presidencies of the Council to be as open, forthcoming and analytical as possible, since there hardly seems to be any other way for thorough analysis but through individual assessments.

Germany has noted with appreciation the early presentation of the report, on 9 September 1998.

I would now like to comment on the necessity of aiming at more comprehensive reform measures. The report informs the general membership about the work of the Security Council in the past. My delegation would like to see improved information and to see participation take place not in the aftermath of events but at the time of their occurrence. In addition to calling for more transparent working methods, Germany firmly holds the view that the composition of the Security Council has to be changed. The current membership no longer corresponds to the realities of the world. The pivotal and comprehensive Security Council reform proposal of the former President of the General Assembly, Mr. Razali Ismail, continues to be, in the view of many delegations, a constructive basis for further discussions.

Reform does not consist of papers and documents, as well written as they may be. For the first time, there is the chance for a true and complete overhaul of the Security Council, which in its present composition is no longer capable of meeting the expectations of the membership, let alone those of the international community and the public. The United Nations can count on Germany and our active commitment during this session to work to benefit the entire Organization.

The President

Before giving the floor to the next speaker, I should like to propose that the list of speakers on this item be closed at 12 noon today. If there are no objections to this approach, I shall take it that the Assembly agrees with this proposal.

The President

I therefore ask representatives who wish to participate in the debate on this item to inscribe their names on the list as soon as possible.

Mr. Hasmy (Malaysia)

A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.

<type 'exceptions.UnicodeEncodeError'>: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe0' in position 3494: ordinal not in range(128)
      args = ('ascii', u'\n\t<p id="pg003-bk04-pa01">I wish to thank the Pe...s provided for in the United Nations Charter.</p>', 3494, 3495, 'ordinal not in range(128)')
      encoding = 'ascii'
      end = 3495
      message = ''
      object = u'\n\t<p id="pg003-bk04-pa01">I wish to thank the Pe...s provided for in the United Nations Charter.</p>'
      reason = 'ordinal not in range(128)'
      start = 3494