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50th Anniversary Address of the Secretary General (selection)
In order to ensure that sanctions remain a credible instrument for promoting international peace and security, Member States will need to address a range of problems encountered in the implementation of sanctions. Recommendations in this regard were put forward in my Supplement to "An Agenda for Peace."
The Security Council's methods of work received consideration during an extensive debate on the annual report of the Council to the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session. Member States exchanged views on a broad range of issues related to the functioning of the Council. The Council made known its intention, as part of its efforts to improve the flow of information and the exchange of ideas between members of the Council and other Member States, to have increased recourse to open meetings, in particular at an early stage in its consideration of a subject, on a case-by-case basis. The Council has already initiated the holding of orientation debates. Briefings by the President of the Security Council for States non-members of the Council have become institutionalized.
In the face of persisting conflict in Africa, Europe and elsewhere, the Security Council has demonstrated that it remains committed to the goals of strengthening peaceful and cooperative relations between Member States and helping communities within States to live peacefully with one another, to rebuild and to work towards stable and productive societies.
It must be emphasized, however, that only if the decisions of the Security Council enjoy the full support of the international community, and only if the parties to the conflict carry out those decisions in full, can the Council fulfil its responsibilities under the Charter to maintain and consolidate international peace and security.
Press Release (SG/SM/5920)
The task before you -- and the other Working Groups of the General Assembly charged with various aspects of reform and restructuring -- is a crucial one. It is, in the words of the heads of State and government who gathered in New York to mark the fiftieth anniversary, "to give to the twenty- first century a United Nations equipped, financed and structured to serve effectively the peoples for which it was established".