Security Council

The Security Council this afternoon decided to extend the term of office of five judges of the Appeals Chamber of the international tribunal established in the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, until 31 December 2014, or completion of the cases to which they have been assigned, if sooner.

As cooperation between peacekeeping missions was increasingly in demand and more frequently used in times of both calm and crisis, the United Nations peacekeeping operations chief told the Security Council today that the measure should be used only as a flexible, temporary tool of necessity, not of choice.

Demanding that the Government of Liberia fulfil its obligations to freeze the financial assets of former President Charles Taylor and his associates, the Security Council this afternoon extended for 12 months the sanctions regime on the country, along with the mandate of the expert panel monitoring the measures.

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Mohammmed Loulichki (Morocco):

In a high-level meeting on the Sahel this morning, the Security Council called for the finalization of an integrated strategy for the North-African region encompassing security, governance, human rights, humanitarian needs and development, while it strongly condemned terrorism, human rights abuses and the destruction of historic sites in Mali.

The outgoing members of the Security Council — India, Germany, Portugal, Colombia and South Africa — delivered briefings this morning on the work of the subsidiary bodies they had chaired during their two-year tenure.

As the international community considered responses to the multiple crises in Mali, including authorization of an African-led military force, Malians themselves needed to be at the centre of efforts to restore their democracy to health and fully recover their territory, the United Nations political affairs chief told the Security Council this morning.

On 5 December 2012, the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1989 (2011) approved the addition of the entry specified below to its Al-Qaida Sanctions List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 1989 (2011) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations:

The President of the new global mechanism for criminal tribunals tasked with prosecuting war crimes committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the 1994 Rwanda genocide today told the Security Council that making criminal justice sustainable in the long run greatly depended on demonstrating that it could be efficient, effective and affordable for the international community.

The Security Council in December planned to intensify its focus on the Sahel, particularly the crisis in Mali, along with continued consideration of a range of situations around the world, the Permanent Representative of Morocco said as he briefed correspondents at Headquarters on the programme of work for his country’s presidency of the body.