United Nations resolution

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A United Nations resolution (or UN resolution) is a formal text adopted by a United Nations (UN) body. Although any UN body can issue resolutions, in practice most resolutions are issued by the Security Council or the General Assembly.

The legal status of UN resolutions has been a matter of intense debate:

• Most experts consider most General Assembly resolutions to be non-binding (Articles 10 and 14 of the UN Charter refer to General Assembly "recommendations"); however, some General Assembly resolutions dealing with matters internal to the United Nations, such as budgetary decisions or instructions to lower-ranking organs, are clearly binding on their addressees.

• Under Article 25 of the Charter, UN member states are bound to carry out "decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter". It has been debated what kind of Security Council resolutions are covered by this provision, in particular whether it only covered Security Council resolutions adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter ("Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression"). The International Court of Justice determined in its 1971 'Namibia' advisory opinion that the binding effect of Security Council decisions is not limited to resolutions adopted under this provision.

For more information on specific resolutions, see:

• United Nations General Assembly Resolution
• United Nations Security Council Resolution

[edit] Structure of a resolution

The typical United Nations resolution is constructed as a single, very long sentence. It is composed of three sections: the name of the body issuing the resolution (be it the Security Council, the General Assembly, a subsidiary organ of the GA, or any other resolution-issuing organization), which serves as the subject of the sentence; the preambulatory clauses (also called preambulatory phrases) indicating the reasons behind the resolution as a preamble does in other documents; and the operative clauses (also called operative phrases) in which the body delineates the course of action it will take (if it is the Security Council or a UN organ making policy for within the UN) or recommends to be taken (in many Security Council resolutions and for all other bodies when acting outside the UN).

The last operative clause, at least in the Security Council, is almost always "Decides to remain seized of the matter," (sometimes changed to "actively seized"). The reasoning behind this custom is somewhat murky, but it appears to be an assurance that the body in question will consider the topic addressed in the resolution in the future if it is necessary.

The preambulatory and operative clauses almost always start with verbs, sometimes modified by adverbs then continue with whatever the body decides to put in; the first word is always either italicized or underlined. However, preambulatory clauses are unnumbered, end with commas, and sometimes do begin with adjectives; operative clauses are numbered, end with semicolons (except for the final one, which ends with a full stop/period), and never begin with adjectives.

The name of the issuing body may be moved from above the preambulatory clauses to below them; the decision to do so is mostly stylistic, and the resolution still comprises a coherent sentence.