Unlike the General Assembly, the Security Council functions continuously at the seat of the United Nations. It is prepared to act as soon as there is a threat to world peace.

Preparatory work for resolutions

The President or any member of the Council may initiate a meeting. The preparatory work for the official meetings is conducted as informal meetings called consultations. Each formal meeting covers only one topic.

Proposals and draft resolutions

Any member of the Security Council may submit proposals and draft resolutions. These may, however, be put to a vote only at the request of a representative of the Council. Nowadays, it is customary for the three permanent members - France, the United Kingdom and the United States (the P3-group) - to submit a draft resolution. Their UN Ambassadors or other representatives meet every day to discuss the issues on the Security Council agenda and to agree on the texts.

This procedure is followed by consultations in the permanent P5-group and among the other groups within the Council. It is important to have gained broad support when the draft resolution is submitted before the official meeting.

Closed informal meetings

The Security Council members may have to consult their national groups in the General Assembly. The representatives meet at closed informal meetings at the UN Headquarters. It is in the informal consultation chamber, next to the Security Council chamber, that the travaux préparatoires of the Council (working papers, draft resolutions etc.) are completed.

Informal consultations on the whole can last for several hours and may run into several sessions. When a given resolution or action has been agreed upon, the consultation is adjourned and the members move next door to open a formal session of the Council.

Official formal meetings

Finally, when the formal meeting takes place, it is often very brief without long discussions. Security Council resolutions are usually adopted by a recorded vote, i. e. a vote which clearly identifies the stand that a Council member took on the issue under discussion. Any member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security Council may be invited to participate as the result of a decision of the Security Council, without any vote, in the discussion of any question brought before the Security Council. This takes place when the Security Council considers that the interests of that member are specially affected, or when a member brings a matter to the attention of the Security Council.

The formal meetings are the only official meetings of the Security Council. They are open to all to observe, but only Council members are allowed to vote or make statements.

The Security Council meeting records

Statements made during UN meetings may be issued as documents called meeting records. Documents from the Security Council meetings carry the following symbols:

N.B.! The meeting records are consecutively numbered starting from 1946-. The year is excluded.

• Meeting records in fulltext, since 1994. These documents, which include the statements and speeches made during the meeting, are official meeting records. The preparatory work for formal meetings is conducted in informal consultations for which no public record exists.
• Research guides by UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library (New York):
  • How to Find United Nations Meeting Records.
  • UN Documentation Research Guide : Security Council Meeting Records.