The United Nations does many things to try to keep the world peaceful. Its agencies promote economic and social development to eliminate poverty and other causes of conflict, for example. But the UN also does more direct stuff, like sending armed peacekeeping forces to separate two warring parties or imposing sanctions on countries that do something threatening to international peace and security. Each of these activities is known as a resolution.
A resolution is a formal expression of the opinion or will of an organ of the United Nations, such as the Security Council or the General Assembly. Its main parts are an introduction, an operative clause and an explanatory statement.
The introduction lays out the basis for the operative clause, which sets out the body’s intentions. The operative clause contains an affirmative action that states what the body is going to do and the explanatory statement explains why it thinks this is the case.
The resolution then contains an alphabetical list of the countries that have contributed to the draft (sponsors) and its title, the date and an abbreviated name of the issuing body. The resolution is usually written in one long sentence, though it may include semicolons and commas. Almost all resolutions begin with verbs, but not always with adjectives; the preambular clauses, which are non-binding, do start with adjectives. All of these rules are intended to ensure that the resolution is clear and understandable. For more information, see our article on How to read a UN resolution.