The United Nations passes resolutions that address a variety of issues. The most common resolutions involve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been the subject of over 150 resolutions since 1947. The timeline below provides an overview of some of these important resolutions. Use the arrows on the right and left of the timeline, or your keyboard’s arrows to move through each event.
Resolutions are formal expressions of the opinion or will of UN organs, and they follow a specific format. UN resolutions are often the first step in a process that requires a significant amount of negotiation. Delegates in your Model UN committee will use resolutions to write proposed solutions to the problems that they study in their committee sessions. Each resolution has a sponsor and signatories. The sponsors are the delegates who write and submit a draft resolution. Most conferences require a certain number or percentage of sponsors and/or signatories for a resolution to be introduced, encouraging consensus-building in the committee.
A resolution can have one or more operative clauses that impose an obligation on the international community to act. These obligations are based on existing UN agreements, as well as the Charter of the United Nations. The United Nations Security Council has the power to veto, which allows the five permanent members (the P5) to block resolutions they disagree with, even if there is broad international support for the measure. This power has been criticized for fueling deadlock and protecting the geopolitical interests of P5 nations at the expense of global peace and security.