Security Council: Meetings Coverage

The Security Council this morning adopted its annual report to the General Assembly for the period 1 August 2011 to 31 July 2012.

Facing a multitude of security challenges, Libya needed strong support from the international community to ensure that perpetrators of crimes committed during the 2011 conflict that led to Muammar Qadhafi’s downfall were brought to justice, and that the country continued on its path towards stability, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told Security Council members today.

The Security Council this morning reauthorized the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to maintain its deployment for four months, until 7 March 2013, while deciding to expand the United Nations support package for the Mission to additional civilian personnel.

The Security Council this afternoon, meeting briefly in the wake of the storm that paralysed New York City and closed United Nations Headquarters for three days, authorized the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to maintain deployment until 7 November under the terms of its existing mandate.

Reaffirming a broad range of commitments to empower and protect women in conflict-affected countries, the Security Council this afternoon called on the international community to give women’s civil society organizations a prominent role in the negotiation, planning and implementation of peace processes and post-conflict development programmes.

With renewed violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, including attacks on peacekeepers, the United Nations’ top peacekeeping official called on the parties to engage fully in implementing the lagging peace process, which he said could ease the high tensions that still existed there, as he briefed the Security Council this afternoon.

Strongly condemning the armed group known as the 23 March Movement, or M23, for its assaults on civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Security Council this afternoon demanded the end of outside support for the Movement and expressed an intention to apply targeted sanctions against it, while requesting proposals for better protecting civilians and stemming arms to the area.

Amid the “new age of accountability” and growing demands for justice, the International Criminal Court and the Security Council must work together “in this new world”, where those contemplating horrific acts could no longer be confident that their heinous crimes would go unpunished, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, opening the Council’s day-long debate on the rule of law and the intertwined roles both entities played in the pursuit of peace and justice.

With Somalia’s nine-year transition complete, upholding its “remarkable” progress, new President, leaner Parliament and calmer security landscape required, now more than ever, urgent and sustained support to ensure further successes following two decades of conflict, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General told the Security Council this morning via a video link from Mogadishu.

Given the “warning signs of a fading two-State solution”, the international community must not let the Syrian crisis and other changes in the Middle East divert its attention from a dangerous stagnation of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, the top United Nations political official told the Security Council this morning, ahead of a debate that heard from over 45 speakers.