What is the Arria Formula meeting recently convened at UNSC?

The forum of the Arria Formula allows the non-members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to engage in a dialogue with member states of the UNSC since 1992, first institutionalised by UNSC President Ambassador Diego Arria. During the March 1992 Council presidency of Venezuela, Ambassador Arria was contacted by Fra Joko Zovko, a Croatian priest who was eager to convey an eyewitness account of the violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina to members of the Council. 

Arria decided to invite Council members to meet with Fra Joko in the UN delegates' lounge "informally". This, therefore, gave Arria the idea of institutionalising the innovative informal meeting format which came to be known as the “Arria-formula” during his presidency in the 90s. Since then, subsequent Arria meetings moved from the delegates lounge to a UN conference room in the basement and were supported by simultaneous interpretation. More recently, many Arria meetings have been held in large UN conference rooms such as, for example, the Trusteeship Council chamber.

An informal non-paper prepared by the Secretariat in October 2002 described the format as “very informal, confidential gatherings which enable Security Council members to have a frank and private exchange of views, within a flexible procedural framework, with persons whom the inviting member or members of the Council (who also act as the facilitators or conveners) believe it would be beneficial to hear and/or to whom they may wish to convey a message."

Samuel Brownback, Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom delivers Remarks at Arria-Formula Meeting of the Security Council on Advancing the Safety and Security of Persons Belonging to Religious Minorities in Armed Conflict at UN Headquarters, ECOSOC Chamber. Credit: UNSC

As per the UNSC,  Arria-formula meetings have been used over the years to meet with a range of actors, including:

• high-level delegations from member states not represented on the Council (Arria meetings were sometimes convened for special meetings with visiting heads of state who wished to meet with the Council—for instance in the 1990s such meetings were held with the presidents of Croatia and Georgia. “Private” formal meetings of the Council or “Informal Interactive Dialogues” are more frequent for such purposes at present.);
• representatives of non-state actors;
• mandate holders of monitoring procedures of the Commission on Human Rights and, more recently, the Human Rights Council;
• heads of international organisations;
• high-level UN officials;
• representatives of NGOs and other members of civil society; or
• representatives of territories not recognised as states who are stakeholders on issues before the Council.

One of the examples of the Arria-formula meeting on Council working methods was the February 13, 2013 meeting on the security dimensions of climate change, in which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was among the speakers. An Arria-formula meeting was also organised by Senegal in April 2016 on “Water, Peace and Security." The meeting went on to serve as what UNSC describes as the "preparatory step" to holding an open debate on this topic during the November presidency that year.

On October 19, 2018, an Arria-formula meeting was called on “Silencing the Guns in Africa” which was, at the time, organised by Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, South Africa and the AU. The discussions served as preparation for the 27 February 2019 open debate and the adoption of a resolution on the issue.

Similarly, on January 31, 2019, the Arria-formula meeting on “Preventing and Countering the financing of terrorism” organised by Australia, France, Indonesia, Peru and Tunisia proved to be extremely significant and helpful in preparation for an open debate on this issue held on 28 March. UNSC adopted Resolution 2462 that mandated all States to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts.  In August 2016, an Arria meeting on the humanitarian situation in Aleppo, Syria, marked the first occasion when such an informal UNSC meeting was webcast on UN TV, with the footage subsequently archived on the UN website. 

 In 2022, the Arria formula meetings of the UNSC have broadened to include Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and non-state representatives, journalists, high-level delegations from member states not represented on the council, representatives of civil society and non-state actors, and representatives of territories which are not recognised as states and more. These UNSC meetings, which do not adhere to a specific date or schedule, are particularly “informal” in their nature and flexible. They can be held if presided by one member of the UNSC on matters that concern the council. 

Since these meetings aren’t officially a part of the Charter of the United Nations, they do not require adherence to the provisional rules of procedure which defines the UNSC. The president of the UNSC announces the Arria Formula meetings at the beginning of each month during the regular schedule of the Council. Meetings begin with a statement from the convening council member in a rather private setting. Although, these meetings can be vetoed by the security council members. 

Moscow's  Arria-formula meetings of the UN Security Council on war in Ukraine 

Russia called for the Arria-formula meeting of the UN Security Council on the topic: "Threats to international peace and security emanating from military biological activities in regions across the globe” during the course of its military invasion in Ukraine in the month of April. It involved the open exchanges on the challenges posed by the military biological activities that can lead to devastating consequences for international peace and security as well as for the world's population.

UNSC invited the briefers and the member states, all of whom presented views, evidence and supporting documents on how to uphold the biological weapons prohibition regime, as the Russian Federation accused the United States of operating the Biolabs inside Ukraine and conducting research on the banned viruses and other biological weapons. 

Arria Formula meeting was also convened by France and Albania on ‘Ensuring Accountability for Atrocities Committed by Russia in Ukraine.’ On May 6, Russia organised an Arria-formula meeting titled “Systematic and mass grave violations of the international humanitarian law as well as other war crimes committed by the Ukrainian military personnel and militia and discovered in the course of the ongoing special military operation of the Russian armed forces”. 

Briefers included Anne-Laure Bonnel, a French investigative journalist; Asya Zuan, a journalist at “NewsFront”; Sonja van den Ende, a Dutch investigative journalist; Giorgio Bianchi, an Italian photojournalist, documentary photographer and filmmaker; and Patrick Lancaster, an American investigative journalist. The meeting was held in the ECOSOC chamber. Russia provided “evidence of violations” of international humanitarian law committed by Ukraine’s military and the government, accusing the latter of ‘systemically subverting” the interests of ethnic Russian minorities in the country.