UNSC
Wrap-Up Grew
to 74, UK Says
Could Replace
Lost Horizon
Scans
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, March
1 – During the
UN Security
Council
“wrap-up”
session on
February 28,
74 member
states came to
listen,
compared to
only 23 at the
end of
January.
Inner
City Press on
Friday asked
Permanent
Representative
Mark Lyall
Grant
of the UK,
which
introduced a
different
reform with
the “horizon
scanning”
Council
briefing in
2010, how the
two formats
differ.
“Both
are useful,”
Lyall Grant
said
diplomatically,
not
surprisingly.
Wrap up
sesssions
“could become
as useful as
horizon
scanning,
looking back
but looking
forward too,
unrestricted,
unrestrained.”
Inner
City Press
pointed out
that the idea
of horizon
scanning was
that the
Secretariat
could raise
issues that
the Council
was not yet
considering.
Lyall
Grant replied,
“that was the
original
concept two
and a half
years
ago, an
unrestricted
briefing from
the Department
of Political
Affairs, right
at the
beginning of
the month
around
agreement of
the
Program of
Work. He could
come in and
say, 'you're
dealing with
this,
but what keeps
me awake are
x, y and z,
which are not
on the
Program.'”
Lyall
Grant paused.
“It hasn't
worked that
way for
various and
obvious
reason. If the
horizon
scanning item
have to be
negotiated in
advance
it is less
useful. Maybe
wrap up is the
best way to
go.”
As
Inner City
Press
exclusively
reported, this
month's
incoming
Council
president
Russia once
suggested that
the next
horizon
scanning
briefing
should include
Bahrain (or,
why wasn't
Bahrain on
it.) Inner
City Press got
a lot of
responses from
the region
interested in
this.
But the agenda
item never
happened.
As
Lyall Grant
turned to go
into the
Council for
his meeting
with
Russia's
Vitaly
Churkin, Inner
City Press
suggested that
in some
future wrap up
sessions,
which are
closed to the
press, the
member
states in the
audience might
be able to
give their
reviews of the
Security
Council's
work.
Lyall
Grant laughed.
And that's how
it is, in the
UN Security
Council.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
while
the February
28 session was
closed, that
evening one
Council
member told
Inner City
Press it had
shortened its
prepared
statement
while reading
it - then
another member
“went out for
more than 15
minutes.” For
that, let the
audience
speak!
, 
