Ambs. Emilio Cardenas and Colin Keating
dated 17 May 1996presented to the General Assembly Working Group on the Security Council
7 June 1996
Our delegations are convinced that modernization of the Security Council and the fulfillment of the mandate set out in General Assembly resolution 48/26 of 2 December 1993 cannot be accomplished by addressing issues of size and composition alone. Decision-making, including the working methods and procedures that lead to decisons, are of even greater importance and must be addressed regardless of the outcome of increasing the membership.
We believe that conclusions, based on the following ideas, should be formulated by the Working Group so that formal recommendations may be addressed to the Security Council by the General Assembly. In deference to the competence of the Security Council, these would only be expressed as recommendations. However, an understanding on the full implementation of such measures would have to form an integral part of any overaall package relating to the modernization of the Council.
1. Daily briefings of the President of the Security Council to the general membership should be institutionalized by a formal decision of the Security Council.
2. The rules of procedure should allow any member of the United Nations to request an urgent meeting of the Security Council in cases when the member state feels there is a threat to international peace and security. The President of the Council should circulate such requests promptly as documents of the Council. The rules of procedure should require that, unless the Council decided otherwise, the President should convene a meeting of the Council to hear the member in question.
3. Consistent with Article 31 of the Charter, non-members of the Council should be permitted to participate in meetings of the informal consultations of the whole, whenever their interests are particularly affected. This should be institutionalized either by provision in the role of procedure or by a formal decision of the Council.
4. Consistent with Article 32 of the Charter, non-members of the Council, which are party to a dispute under consideration by the Security Council, should be permitted to participate in an appropriate manner in the informal consultations of the Council relevant to such dispute. This should be institutionalized either by provision in the Rules of Procedure or by a formal decision of the Council.
5. The recommendations of the General Assembly in resolution 267 (iii) of 14 April 1949 on what is to be considered an action of a procedural nature should be included in the rules of procedure or otherwise formally approved.
6. Open formal meetings of the Security Council should be held more often. To this end, orientation debates should be the norm, when the Council commences consideration of an issue. The rules of procedure or a formal Council decision should provide that such meetings be held unless the Council decides otherwise.
7. An effective mechanism, such as the establishment of a point of contact, should be established by the Secretariat for alerting all member States that are not members of the Council of meetings and distributing the texts of draft resolutions when issued "in blue." At a minimum, the notice to all States should be sufficient for them to have a reasonable opportunity to exercise their rights under Article 31 and 32 of the Charter.
8. The provision to non-members of the Security Council of the tentative forecast of the programme of work of the Council should be institutionalized and expanded, so that it highlights the action taken by the Council on the matters referred to in the previous month's forecast.
9. The annotated agenda and expected action to be taken at formal Council meetings should be included in the Journal of the United Nations.
10. Bearing in mind Articles 10, 11, 12 and 14 of the Charter, regular institutionalized consultations between the President of the Security Council and the President of the General Assembly should be arranged.
11. The President of the Security Council and the President of the General Assembly should play more active roles in facilitating the overall United Nations response to situations in which there is concurrent responsibility between the two organs.
