The 2025 edition of the Highlights of Security Council Practice is now available online, offering readers an insider’s perspective into the UN Security Council’s activity over the past year.
In 2025, the Security Council held fewer meetings and informal consultations than in 2024, while recording a substantive increase in informal interactive dialogues.
The Council also adopted fewer decisions in 2025 (resolutions and presidential statements) and issued fewer press statements compared with 2024.
Unanimously adopted resolutions also declined together with the number of draft resolutions failing to be adopted. In addition, vetoes reached their lowest level since 2021, and the number of procedural votes decreased compared to the previous year.
In a similar way, 2025 saw a decrease of women participating in Council meetings under rule 39 compared to 2024. Specifically, 43 per cent (162 invitees) of rule 39 invitees were women and 57 per cent (211 invitees) were men, compared to 51 per cent men and 49 per cent women in 2024.
The Council conducted two missions: one to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa and another to Lebanon and Syria.
In 2025, the Council extended the mandates of eight out of eleven active peacekeeping operations (UNFICYP, UNMISS, UNDOF, UNIFIL, MINURSO, MINUSCA, UNISFA and MONUSCO), as well as five out of eleven active special political missions (UNAMA, BINUH, UNMHA, UNSMIL and the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia).
The mandate of UNAMI concluded on 31 December 2025. In addition to mandate extensions, the Council introduced a series of review mechanisms and modified the mandates of several missions.
The Highlights of Security Council Practice has been published every year since 2011 by the Security Council Affairs Division (SCAD) in the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
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SCAD also maintains the Council’s current and upcoming programme of work on the Security Council website and prepares analytical information on the work of the Security Council.
