Chapter 2:   PLACE AND FORMAT OF COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS

Section 7:   Wrap-up meetings

 

New information on the origins of wrap-up meetings

 

The year 2000 is commonly referred to as the beginning of the format of the wrap-up meeting, held at the end of a presidency in order for Security Council members to evaluate the Council’s work during that month.  However, it has now come to light that as early as August 1993, Madeleine Albright, the then Permanent Representative of the United States, initiated a wrap-up meeting during informal consultations of the whole at which Council members reflected on that month’s presidency.  The month’s work had included the adoption of eight resolutions on agenda items including Haiti, Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Liberia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. 

 

If, then, Mrs. Albright is the “mother” of informal wrap-up sessions, another American Permanent Representative, Richard Holbrooke, can be considered the “father” of wrap-up sessions held as public meetings.  At the end of the United States Council presidency for the month of January 2000, Holbrooke convened a meeting for the purpose of evaluating the “Month of Africa”.  At the first meeting of that month, Holbrooke had declared “a month-long focus by this Council on the special challenges confronting the continent of Africa” (S/PV.4087).

 

The meeting convened on 31 January 2000 by the United States is not normally included in lists of wrap-up meetings because it was held on a specific theme, whereas most subsequent wrap-ups held in the format of public meetings have been general in nature.  However, since the wrap-ups held on 31 January 2002, 30 May 2003, 28 August 2003 and 30 March 2005 had a designated focus (such as UN peacekeeping or conflicts in Africa) and are usually counted among wrap-up meetings, it is fitting that the 31 January 2000 be added to the list, and considered the first wrap-up held as a formal public meeting.  (This update supplements pages 52-56 of the book.)

 

A Table of all formal and informal wrap-up meetings held from 1993 to the present is attached.