Chapter 2:   PLACE AND FORMAT OF COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS

Section 2:   Formal public (open) meetings

 

Presidential Note on the official records for Council meetings

 

On 18 December 2014, the Security Council issued a Note by the President (S/2014/922) which contains measures to improve the caliber of the Council’s official meeting records.  The new Note recalls paragraph 37 of Presidential note S/2010/507, which reads:

 

“Texts of statements made at the meetings of the Security Council will, at the request of the delegation making the statement, be distributed by the Secretariat inside the Council Chamber to Council members and other Member States and permanent observers to the United Nations present at the meeting.  A delegation requesting the distribution of its statement is encouraged to provide a sufficient number of copies (200) to the Secretariat in advance of the statement.  When a delegation does not provide to the Secretariat a sufficient number of copies of its statement, those copies will be placed outside the Council Chamber at the end of the meeting.  Delegations are requested not to make statements otherwise available during the meeting.”

 

Recognizing the usefulness of the texts of statements made at Council meetings for preparing the verbatim records, the new Note encourages delegations providing fewer than 200 copies of their statement to provide a text to the Secretariat.  In addition, the Note encourages speakers to contact the Secretariat’s Verbatim Reporting Service when corrections or adjustments to meeting records are needed.  (This update supplements pages 25-28 and 37-38 of the book.)