S/PV.7053 Security Council

The Security Council will now proceed to the consideration of its annual report to the General Assembly, for the period from 1 August 2012 to 31 July 2013. The draft report has been provided to members of the Council. The introduction to the draft report was prepared by the delegation of the United States of America, as President of the Council in July 2013, with the participation of the other members of the Council. The body of the report was prepared by the Secretariat. I should like to express appreciation to the United States of America and the Secretariat for their respective contributions. I should like to point out that the draft report was prepared in accordance with the note by the President of 26 July 2010 (S/2010/507). I now give the floor to the representative of the United States, whose delegation was responsible for drafting the introduction to this year’s annual report.

As President of the Security Council for the month of July 2013, the United States was responsible for preparing the introduction of the draft Security Council annual report to the General Assembly. We were pleased to document the Council’s work this year. The draft report before the Council includes a comprehensive account of all the meetings and activities of the Security Council, as well as the range of thematic issues covered during the reporting period. In summarizing such a large amount of content, we aimed to strike a careful balance so as to maintain a useful amount of substance while also keeping the report as concise and readable as possible. Overall, we hope that the report will not sit forgotten in a corner of the Security Council’s website, but will be a useful tool for those interested in reviewing the Council’s work. In drafting the report, we relied primarily on the Council’s monthly assessments, which are agreed by consensus throughout the year. We found these to be valuable and recommend that those interested in more detailed accounts of the Security Council’s work look to these informative reports. While responsibility for assembling the report fell to our delegation this year, ultimately the report is the result of collaboration among Council members. To ensure that the report accurately and adequately reflected the Council’s work activities and decisions, the text was reviewed by the States that were members of the Security Council during the reporting period. Throughout this process, Council members had the opportunity to review and reach agreement, and I would like to express my appreciation to the members for their assistance. Their commitment and cooperation were essential to achieving this result, not just on the report but on the year of work that it describes. We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the Secretariat for the deep institutional knowledge and invaluable advice it shared as we worked on the draft.

It is my understanding that the Council is ready to proceed to the adoption of the draft annual report. May I take it that the draft report is adopted by the Council? There being no objection, it is so decided. This decision will be reflected in a note by the President of the Security Council to be issued as document S/2013/635. The Security Council has thus concluded the present stage of its consideration of the item on its agenda.