SECURITY COUNCIL

Security Council 

• Responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security;

• May adopt compulsory resolutions;

• Has fifteen members: five permanent members with veto power and ten elected members.

• The Security Council is charged with maintaining peace and security among nations. While other organs of the UN can only make recommendations to member states, the Security Council has the power to make binding decisions that member states have agreed to carry out, under the terms of Charter Article 25. 

• The decisions of the council are known as United Nations Security Council resolutions.

• The Security Council is made up of fifteen member states:
  1)five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) 
  2)ten non-permanent members (currently Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland). 

• The five permanent members hold veto power over UN resolutions, allowing a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, though not debate. The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms, with five members elected each year by the General Assembly on a regional basis. The presidency of the Security Council rotates alphabetically each month.