site banner

Transnational Thursday for May 21, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

When it passes a resolution (example), the United Nations Security Council often says at the end that it "decides to remain actively seized of the matter". Apparently, there exists an official list of all the matters of which the Security Council is seized. At present, the list contains 49 active items that actually have been considered in the 2023–2026 period, plus another 16 stale items that were last considered before 2023 but to whose deletion a UN member objected in the latest annual review of the list. (For example: India's 1948 annexation of Hyderabad has not been considered by the Security Council since 1949, so it was highlighted as due for deletion from the list in January, and by default it would have been deleted in March. But Pakistan objected to that deletion, as it has done for many years. So, officially, the Security Council still is seized of that matter. Likewise, the UKGBNI has forced Russia's 2018 Novichok poisoning to remain on the list.)

For each item, the list gives only the first date of consideration and the latest date of consideration, so actually finding the related records can be a bit of a pain. (For example: The latest date listed for "the situation between Iraq and Kuwait" is 2025-09-17. Can you search for documents from that specific date in the UN Digital Library's interface? No—if you try to filter by what is labeled "creation date", you actually get a filter by what appears to be upload date. Rather, the best method is to search for the literal text "17 September 2025", which reveals the relevant resolution (regarding repatriation of Kuwaiti corpses and property (particularly, Kuwait's national archives) lost in Iraq's 1990 invasion) and meeting transcript.)