ISS Seminar Pretoria: The Future of the United Nation's Security Council

Date: 2011-10-20

Venue: ISS Conference Room , , Block C, Brooklyn Court , , 361 Veale Street , , New Muckleneuk

RSVP: Sarah Malefo

Tel: 012 346 9500

Fax: 012 460 0997

"New Leadership for a New age – bringing sunshine into the UN Security Council and hope for ordinary people who are poor, hungry or victims of tyranny"

These words come from President Nelson Mandela in New York on 23 October 1995 at the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations. He called for urgent action to reshape the United Nations to better reflect human diversity and for a programme of action, which focuses on ordinary people and not the realpolitik of the past. Now, 16 years later, in a period where South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil,  Japan, India and Germany have been members of the Security Council we can get a glimpse of how that vision of President Mandela in 1995 might look in practice. What conclusions can we draw? Does realpolitik still dominate? What is the path for the future?

This address is by Colin Keating. Ambassador Keating was until recently, the Founding Executive Director of a new organisation in New York called "Security Council Report." It is a very successful and highly respected independent non-government body, which was founded in 2005 to give leadership and better focus on the issues before the UN Security Council. It provides real time and in depth research and analysis which is freely available. It shines a bright light on what is happening and provides resources and information which build capacity for incoming Council members and helps to level the playing field between elected members and permanent members. Colin Keating was for many years a New Zealand diplomat. He served as New Zealand`s Ambassador to the UN and Representative on the Security Council in 1993-94. He also served as Deputy Secretary of the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as the Secretary of Justice of New Zealand. After seven years establishing Security Council Report he has now returned to New Zealand and is pleased to be a resource on the Security Council to help bring "sunshine" into its work.

• CHAIRPERSON: Dr Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, South Africa

• KEY SPEAKER: Amb Colin Keating, former president of the UN Security Council Working Group in New York

• RESPONDANT: Amb Dumisani S. Kumalo, Chief Executive Officer, Thabo Mbeki Foundation, former Permanent Representative of South Africa to the United Nations