The Arria Formula
from www.globalpolicy.org/security/mtgsetc/arria.htm

revised by James Paul
February, 2001

The Arria Formula is an informal arrangement that allows the Council greater
flexibility to be briefed about international peace and security issues. It
has been used frequently and assumed growing importance since it was first
implemented in 1993.
The Arria Formula assumed special importance because under long standing
Council practice, only delegations, high government officials (of Council
members) and United Nations officials could speak at regular Council
meetings and consultations. The Arria Formula enables a member of the
Council to invite other Council members to an informal meeting, held outside
of the Council chambers (traditionally in posh Conference Room 7), and
chaired by the inviting member. The meeting is called for the purpose of a
briefing given by one or more persons, considered as expert in a matter of
concern to the Council.

The formula is named for Amb. Diego Arria of Venezuela who devised it. In
1993, during the crisis in former Yugoslavia, a Bosnian priest came to New
York and asked to meet with various Council members individually. Only
Ambassador Arria agreed to meet him. Ambassador Arria was so impressed with
the priest's story that he felt all Council members should hear it too.
Obviously, it was impossible to get the Council to agree to hear this
testimony in its official sessions. So Arria simply invited Council members
to gather over coffee in the Delegates' Lounge. Many attended, the meeting
was a great success and the Arria Formula was born.

Today, Arria Formula meetings take place virtually every month, sometimes
more than once. Attendance is typically at a very high level -- the
permanent representative or deputy. Only rarely do individual members fail
to attend. The meetings are announced by the Council president at the
beginning of each month or whenever organized, as part of the regular
Council schedule. And the meetings are provided with full interpretation by
the Secretariat. No Council meetings or consultations are ever scheduled at
a time when the Arria Formula meetings take place. So the Arria system is an
interesting mixture of informality and formality. It allows the Council to
sidestep its hide bound Rules of Procedure and open itself in a very limited
way to the outside world.

Most UN member states support the Arria Formula and see it as a positive
development. In fact, the "Razali Proposal" for Security Council reform,
developed by General Assembly President Razali Ismail and made public on 20
March 1997, proposed "greater use" of the formula "to facilitate
consultations between members and non-members of the Council." The formula
has also been supported in various speeches in the General Assembly.

Beginning in 1996, some elected members of the Council sought to broaden the
use of the Arria Formula, to include NGOs and other non-state
representatives. Unfortunately, some delegations, notably the UK and Russia,
insisted on continued restricted use. No permanent member supported change.
They preferred to use the Formula to hear only the points of view of heads
of state and other officials. They opposed briefings to hear NGOs and other
non-official voices. Elected members argued that such voices are precisely
the reason the Arria Formula was invented, since officials can address the
Council at its formal meetings.

The first clash over the Arria Formula came in the fall of 1996, when
Ambassador Juan Somavía of Chile sought to organize a meeting for Council
members with several humanitarian NGOs. When resistance developed over the
use of the Arria Formula, Somavía negotiated another formula for such a
meeting, which came to be known as the Somavía Formula. The Somavía Formula
included members of the ECOSOC bureau and the bureaus of the General
Assembly Second and Third Committees and it was chaired by the head of the
UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs. It was put into practice on February
12, 1997, when three humanitarian NGOs -- Oxfam, Doctors without Borders,
and CARE -- briefed the Council. But this formula was not been used again,
largely because delegations not on the three bureaus objected to being
excluded. Instead, interest returned to reviving the Arria Formula.

In August and September of 1997, a dispute arose in the Council over a
proposal by Portugal to invite Amnesty International Secretary General
Pierre Sané to give an Arria briefing. As a result of pressure by Permanent
Members, Portugese Ambassador Antonio Monteiro of Portugal arranged a
"modified" version of the Arria formula. The meeting with Sané, finally held
on September 15, was called an "ad hoc" event, since some delegations
refused to agree to it being accorded Arria status. About the same time,
according to reliable reports, the Secretariat list of past Arria briefings
was deleted from the UN computer -- presumably at the insistance of powerful
delegation(s)!

Because the previous agreements about Arria briefings had been reached in
Consultations and in any case were informal, there was no official record as
to what Arria briefings were supposed to be and what their rules. Behind
closed doors, the Council began discussing the issue, at times somewhat
acrimoniously. Portugal, in an effort to boost the broad interpretation of
Arria briefings, organized an Arria Formula briefing with Arria himself in
mid-October. This allowed for a full discussion of the issue. The liberals'
interpretation was put forward forcefully, supported by Arria himself. They
argued in part that heads of state and other officials could and should be
heard by the Council in its regular sessions, as provided for in the
Charter, while Arria Formula meetings should be used for a broad range of
different voices. But the meeting did not resolve the issue. After the
meeting with Sané there were no further briefings by NGOs and unofficial
voices for well over two years.

Finally, as the Council began to adopt more open procedures and more
flexible meeting arrangements in the fall of 1999, the possibility of
arranging an NGO briefing under the Arria formula arose again. Sentiment had
shifted among Permanent Members, notably in the UK delegation, where a new
ambassador and new government were considerably more favorable to
consultations with NGOs. On April 12, 2000, the Council held its first
regular Arria Formula briefing in several years with NGO leaders, once again
with leading humanitarian NGOs. During the year, the Council held two
additional briefings with NGOs and it would seem that the way is open for
regular use of the formula for this purpose.

The Arria Formula evolved in yet another important way in 2000. For the
first time ever, the Council permitted other member states to attend Arria
Formula meetings. This arrangement did not permit other members states to
speak, but it gave them important access to information. They could attend
the briefings on condition that they wrote to the President of the Council
asking for permission to attend.

Some feel that the Council should be able to invite all parties to provide
briefings in its regular sessions. In the future, this may become possible.
In the meanwhile, the Arria Formula has provided a very valuable and
flexible instrument for the Council to obtain information and to hold
dialogues with imporant parties in the international community.

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Special Arria Formula Meetings between NGOs and the Security Council
More Information on Briefings and Formulas
(www.globalpolicy.org/security/mtgsetc/arria.htm

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