UN Meeting Records
UN bodies issue several types of meeting records:
- Verbatim transcripts, indicated by the document symbol PV for procès verbaux. Verbatim transcripts are issued for:
- Plenary meetings of the General Assembly
- General Assembly First Committee meetings
- Open formal Security Council meetings
- Detailed summaries of meetings, indicated by the document symbol SR for summary records. Summary records are issued for:
- Meetings of the General Assembly's Second through Sixth Committees
- Plenary meetings of ECOSCO
- Communiqués, brief summaries of meetings also indicated by the document symbol PV for procès verbaux. Communiqués are issued by the Security Council following closed formal meetings.
- UNBISnet - Index to SpeechesIndexes speeches before ECOSOC from 1983 forwards, the General Assembly from 1983 forwards, the Security Council from 1964 forwards, and the Trusteeship Council from 1982 forwards.
Users can search by speaker, country, topic, date, and document. The index does not search the full text of speeches but does link to the full text where available.
If you'd like to find speeches by country, you can also try:
- UN Member States: On the RecordFor each country, UN Member States on the Record links to UNBISnet search results listing their statements before the General Assembly, Security Council, and ECOSOC.
Finally, you can search the full text of meeting records on the UN Digital Library by filtering your search to meeting records:
- United Nations Digital LibraryTo search meeting records, run your search then, in the left sidebar, set the Collections drop down to Meeting Records.
The UN Digital Library allows searching of meetings records' full text but keep in mind that it includes few meeting records before 1993 and that pre-1993 documents are often not full text searchable.
Meeting records are not issued for every meeting of every UN body. In particular:
- The Security Council does not issue records for informal meetings. Instead, it participates in a press conference called a "media stakeout" immediately following the meeting.
- ECOSOC subsidiary bodies do not issue meeting records. However, they may issue press releases summarizing their meetings.
If there are no meeting records, you will instead need to learn about the meeting through any relevant agendas, drafts, reports, and press coverage. For many recent meetings, the UN also provides free online video of the meeting or subsequent press conference:
- UN Web TVVideo of meetings and press conferences for various UN bodies, including Security Council media stakeouts.
UN Voting Records
The best starting points for searching for votes are UNBISnet and the UN Documents Library:
- UNBISnet - Voting RecordsIncludes all General Assembly and Security Council votes since they first began in 1946.
- UN Document Library- Voting RecordsIncludes all General Assembly and Security Council votes since they first began in 1946.
For recent votes, both databases will generally provide a roll call vote, identifying each country's yes or no vote. For older votes, the databases may only provide summaries of the total yes and no votes. In some cases, this is because the resolution was passed by acclamation- i.e. a voice vote or show of hands at which a formal roll call was not taken. In other cases, there may have been a roll call vote that is simply not recorded in UNBISnet or the UN Document Library. You may be able to find the roll call from these sources instead:
- UN Press ReleasesSome press releases include roll call votes. The UN's Press website allows full text searching of press releases since 1995.
- International Legal Materials
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Call Number: 2nd Floor Row 248BPublication Date: 1962-ILM is a journal that republishes selected international law documents with commentary. Often, commentary for UN documents will include roll calls votes. To check if ILM provides roll call votes for your document, search for your document by title or symbol. Depending on the document, you may find that ILM did not reproduce the document; reproduced the document but did not provide the roll call vote; or reproduced the document and provided the roll call vote.
