At the heart of the meeting is Russia’s veto, not a fresh debate on the Moroccan Sahara. The meeting is strictly procedural and concerns the use of veto power in the Security Council, in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 76/262, adopted on April 26, 2022.
Introduced at Liechtenstein’s initiative, the mechanism is designed to subject the exercise of veto power to public scrutiny before the entire UN membership, thereby strengthening transparency and political accountability among the Security Council’s five permanent members.
Under this procedure, a General Assembly debate is automatically convened within ten working days of a veto being cast, allowing member states to examine the circumstances surrounding its use and, in particular, giving the country that exercised the veto — in this case, Russia — an opportunity to explain its reasons before the international community.
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Since 2022, the mechanism has been triggered 15 times, notably in connection with Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Mali, the arms race in outer space, North Korea, Sudan, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and Gaza.
The November 10 meeting therefore falls within an existing institutional procedure devoted to the use of veto power. It does not, in itself, constitute a process for reconsidering or revising a Security Council decision. The purpose of the mechanism is to increase the political and diplomatic cost of exercising the veto and, ultimately, to discourage its use.
Nor does the debate entail the automatic adoption of a resolution or any new decision by the General Assembly on the Moroccan Sahara issue. In keeping with established practice, the proceedings are recorded in a strictly factual report prepared under the authority of the President of the General Assembly, without any decision or recommendations. The report will be transmitted to the President of the Security Council as part of the institutional dialogue between the two UN bodies.
