In a year marked by global instability and proliferating conflicts, the Security Council made modest progress in meeting the world's growing demand for action that is more coherent and less hamstrung by political divisions, the General Assembly heard today, as members considered the Council's report on its work in 2025.
Many delegates praised the contents of this year's annual report to the Assembly (document A/80/2 ) as more substantive than in past years. However, speakers broadly cited "more room for improvement" and called for deeper analysis aimed at better informing the work of the 15-member Council.
Moreover, some delegates described the Council itself as lacking the transparency and effectiveness needed to counter growing public scepticism about the UN's credibility.
"During the reporting period, the Security Council confronted an increasingly complex global environment marked by protracted conflicts, geopolitical tensions, new crises and worsening humanitarian situations," said Colombia's representative, who introduced the 2025 report in her capacity as Council President for June.
255 Formal Meetings, 115 Closed Consultations, 44 Resolutions
From 1 January to 31 December 2025, she said, the 15-member Council's discussions reflected UN Member States' "growing expectations […] for effective multilateral action, strengthened preventive diplomacy [and] more coherent responses". Council members held 255 formal meetings, 115 closed consultations and 8 informal interactive dialogues.
It also held 139 unscheduled meetings during the year, she said, "reflecting the rapidly evolving nature of developments on the ground and the sustained demand for the Council's attention to urgent crises and threats".
Among the topics on the Council's agenda were country-specific, regional and thematic matters, she continued, ranging from terrorism to peacekeeping, sanctions and cooperation between the UN and regional organizations. Members adopted a total of 44 resolutions and eight presidential statements, while issuing 35 press statements over the course of the year.
Among other highlights of the Council's work, she cited ongoing cooperation with the Peacebuilding Commission - including holding an informal interactive dialogue on youth, peace and security - and various field missions, including an unprecedented joint visit to Syria and Lebanon.
"At the same time," she said, "differences of views among members continued to affect decision-making". For example, the Council faced an unprecedented delay in the appointment of Chairs and Vice-Chairs of its subsidiary bodies, which significantly hindered the Council's ability to fulfil its mandate.
Assembly-Council Cooperation 'Practical, Concrete, Urgent'
General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock (Germany) said the Council's annual report provides a valuable opportunity for the 193-member Assembly to reflect on the Council's work, and seeks to build greater coherence and complementarity between the two organs in addressing global challenges.
"This cooperation is not an abstraction," she said. "It is practical, concrete and urgent." Citing its particular importance as the UN prepares to select its next Secretary-General, she stressed need for a credible and structured selection process that is truly inclusive of the wider UN membership.
"The annual report is not merely a record of meetings held and resolutions adopted," said the representative of Ecuador, speaking for the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency Group. Rather, it is "one of the principal instruments through which the Council accounts to the wider [UN] membership". Welcoming a more analytical report this year, he nevertheless stressed that further progress is needed. Among other proposals, he urged more focus on how Council decisions are implemented in practice, greater transparency on situations where the Council was unable to act and more information on its closed consultations.
Speakers Demand More Focus on Veto Use
"The Security Council exercises responsibilities on behalf of all Member States," said Portugal's representative. Welcoming the report's increased transparency and more substantive contents - as well as its focus on the use of the veto power - he pledged, as a non-permanent Council member just elected this week for the period 2027-2028, that Portugal will seek to improve the organ's transparency, accountability and effectiveness.
The representative of the Philippines was among several speakers who cited a spike in the Council's unscheduled - or emergency - meetings in 2025, which he said reflected "the increasingly reactive environment" in which the organ is operating.
Mexico's delegate agreed that "we can hardly say that peace has been preserved", given the number of armed conflicts now raging across the globe. One civilian lost their life every 14 minutes in 2025, while ceasefires - such as the ones in Gaza and Iran - remain fragile. Voicing concern about "the deadlock in the Security Council, caused so frequently by the use and abuse of the veto", he urged States to join the Franco-Mexican veto initiative aimed at restricting the use of the veto in situations involving mass atrocities.
Australia's speaker joined others in calling both for more analysis in the Council's annual report and the timely completion of monthly assessments prepared by Council members following their presidencies. He also echoed other speakers in praising the Council's increasing cooperation with the UN Peacebuilding Commission.
The representative of Poland emphasized that the Council should strive, wherever possible, to avoid paralysis in its work. Several already-existing rules in the UN Charter - such as one requiring that members abstain from voting in situations where they are parties to the dispute in question - could make it more effective, he said in that regard.
Cuba's delegate said that, while the Council was undeniably busy in 2025, its report "cannot hide the deep limitations" it faces in acting coherently and without selectivity. Several important initiatives did not succeed due to the repeated use of the veto by permanent members, particularly the United States, he said. It is also unacceptable that the report fails to offer a critical analysis of Israel's violations or address the resulting humanitarian consequences.
The representatives of several countries currently on the Council's agenda also took the floor.
Myanmar Hidden from Public View - 'De Facto Veto'
Myanmar's delegate, for one, described the report's section on Myanmar as "an unfortunate encapsulation of limitations and failures by the Council to fulfil its mandate". Rejecting the Council's practice of holding private meetings on the topic, he warned that, besides obscuring the actual situation in Myanmar from public view, "de facto vetoes have been paralysing the work of the Council on Myanmar, making it largely ineffective". The organ's action should be commensurate with the 8,000 people killed and 3.6 million displaced since the 2021 military coup.
Several speakers, including the representative of the United Arab Emirates, acknowledged that the number of vetoes cast in 2025 dropped as compared to 2024. However, he said, the way power is exercised in the Council "continues to raise serious concerns". In that context, he voiced regret over the Council's failure to adopt a draft resolution on 7 April regarding the disruption to commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which has serious implications for international trade, humanitarian aid supply chains and respect for the law of the sea.
Iran Urges Council to Address Inaction
However, Iran's representative described the vetoes cast on 7 April as "timely and necessary" and urged the Council to address its lack of action on several critical matters of international peace and security - most strikingly, the war of aggression launched by Israel against his country in June 2025, with United States support.
The representative of Pakistan recalled that his delegation held the Council Presidency in July 2025, during which it was entrusted with coordinating and drafting the report's "substantive and analytical" introduction. Despite heightened geopolitical tensions and divisions, the report shows that the Council "continued to play a central role in promoting stability, supporting peace processes and reinforcing multilateral cooperation".
Noting the continued relevance of some of the organ's long-standing agenda items, he cited the question of Jammu and Kashmir - a dispute between his country and India - and stressed that the people of that territory must be allowed to exercise their right to self-determination.
India's delegate echoed other speakers in noting the striking and rapid geopolitical changes currently taking place, and urged the Council to submit its 2026 report to the Assembly as early as possible. Responding to the representative of Pakistan's references to Jammu and Kashmir, he warned that Council membership can never be treated as a forum for "peddling biased and false narratives".
The representative of Pakistan took the floor in exercise of the right of reply on that matter.
In other business, the Assembly adopted a draft decision entitled "Participation of non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, academic organizations and the private sector in the 2026 high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS" (document A/80/L.74 ), as amended, without a vote.
