Statements/speeches made and actions taken during United Nations meetings can be recorded either as verbatim records (identified by the suffix "/PV." within the document symbol) or summary records (identified by the suffix "/SR." within the document symbol). A proces verbal (i.e., PV) is a full, first-person account of the proceedings of a meeting whereas a summary record (i.e., SR) is a third-person condensed version. Meetings of principal organs as well as those of selected subsidiary bodies are usually entitled to coverage as either verbatim or summary records, but not both. In those cases where a body is not entitled to meeting record coverage, the press release, if issued for the body in question, may function as an alternative source of information on a particular meeting until such time as a summary of the discussions is issued as part of a sessional/annual report.

Formal meetings of the Security Council, which have always been entitled to verbatim coverage (identified by the suffix "/PV." within the document symbol), are consecutively numbered. (The preparatory work for formal meetings is conducted in informal consultations for which no public record exists.)

Meetings of the Security Council are presided over by the President of the Council. The Presidency is held in turn, on a monthly basis, by members of the Council in the English alphabetical order of their names (see: Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council).

Example:

S/PV.4492

Verbatim record of the 4492nd meeting, on 15 March 2002

Press releases for Security Council meetings are issued under the series symbol SC/-. They contain a summary of the discussions which took place at the meetings as well as the unofficial text of the resolutions and presidential statements adopted at the meetings. The full text of press releases from October 1995 onwards is available from the UN News Centre.

Example:

SC/8169

Press release on the 5022nd meeting, on 17 August 2004 (includes unofficial resolution text)

The full text of Security Council meeting records from 1994 onwards is made available in this guide. The same material and, additionally, a number of pre-1994 meeting records can be retrieved through UNBISnet and the Official Document System of the United Nations (ODS).

Speeches made before the Security Council from 1964 onwards are indexed on an annual basis in the printed publication Index to Proceedings of the Security Council. UNBISnet provides electronic access to citations for speeches made in the Security Council since the 38th year (1983). Links to the full text exist for recent speeches.

Prepared and maintained by the Department of Public Information (DPI), Dag Hammarskjöld Library (DHL) . Comments as well as suggestions for further additions/enhancements may be directed to the Dag Hammarskjöld Library.