Enhancing transparency of Security Council proceedings.

Article 35 of the United Nations Charter and Rule 37 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council allow non-members of the Council to draw attention to, and participate in discussing, any issue of interest to them without the right to vote. This was made possible when the Council conducted its business in the open and in public. However, through the years and given the complications and perhaps confidentiality relating to certain issues, the Council deemed it necessary to undertake its deliberations in private, with only members attending in what it calls "informal consultants". By and large, this became the prescribed method of work, and the Council does not go public except when the issue is finalized. This practically shut off non-members from the privilege of participation stipulated by Article 35 and Rule 37.

In recent years, efforts have been exerted to get things back to "normal". This has proved to be a difficult task not only because of breaking with habits, but the issues handled by the Council suffered some complications that generated fundamental differences of opinion among members and consequently caused some divisions in approach, even some stalemate in dealing with certain issues that rendered Council actions somewhat compromising. Lastly, there is some resistance on the part of some members to expose Council deliberations to the public, although its informal consultations are not in the Rules of Procedure because in the end it goes formal every time it needs to legalize its decisions prior to action.

Understandably, attempts to open up the Council again started timidly by a number of non-permanent (some call them elected) members in a letter to the Council President asking precisely for transparency in its work. There is no question of more transparency here as is occasionally said because it simply did not exist, except when the Council wanted to air views of non-members on issues that have been discussed for years, with little or no impact on Council decisions regarding those issues. The letter was referred to the Council's Documentation and Procedure Committee where its experts discussed its contents, and eventually no action was taken. Non-permanent members who came after that group picked up the relay and found that it might be more practical, by way of results, to address the Council directly with the problem of transparency. This exercise, with the think-alike mentality, was even enchanced by the ambassadors when they became presidents of the Council. The approach towards transparency took many forms. One of them relates to sanctions. The latter became especially unpopular when they were not targeted, i.e, the whole population suffers when the Council wants to punish a certain regime.

Arms embargo is an example of targeted sanctions. This exercise had a dual purpose: to make sanctions targeted and to enhance transparency. The chairmen of the sanctions committees met in a series of working lunches and developed a number of guidelines that was studied by the Council and issued in a Note from the President in all working languages. Why not issued through a statement or a resolution? - part of the resistance from within the Council, but it did not matter, it got through. Now, every time the Council intends to impose sanctions, it has to take these guidelines into consideration.

A parallel exercise of transparency was undertaken recently by a number of presidencies, including mine in December 1998. This took many forms, including having a public meeting with an informal setting, i.e. a briefing by a member of the Secretariat on a certain issue, followed by a discussion. For example, when the Chairman of the Sanctions Committee on Sierra Leone, Ambassador Hans Dahlgren of Sweden, undertook a mission to that country and its surroundings, I thought it would be a good idea to listen to his findings in public, at least those that are not confidential in character, the later being discussed by the Committee itself. Being President of the Council at that time, I consulted with members and upon their concurrence decided to hold a public meeting which proved to be satisfactory. We had an additional briefing by a high official from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, followed by a discussion in which members actively participated. In the course of the deliberation, reference naturally was made to the Secretary-General's report on Africa, which in itself was the subject of a successful public meeting. Another form of transparency was having Council members and non-members pronounce themselves on a certain theme like peacekeeping and its linkage with peace-building.

Obviously this falls short of total transparency of Council proceedings like it was done before, but the process has begun on that track. It is going to take a lot of time and requires patience. Nevertheless, this strategy of accommodation proved to be of more value than confrontation, which does not in any case pay any dividend because Council members are not equal in the sense that some are non-permanent members, while others are and with veto power. How far the latter can go, with transparency in particular and Council reforms in general, does not hinder the efforts undertaken at present, modest as they might seem, to make the Council more open and accessible to members of the United Nations on whose behalf important decisions are taken in the field of peace and security.