Press elements are the lightest and least formal category of communicative output produced by the United Nations Security Council, ranking below press statements, presidential statements, and resolutions in the hierarchy of Council pronouncements. They have no basis in the UN Charter and are not mentioned in the Council's Provisional Rules of Procedure (S/96/Rev.7); rather, they emerged as a working practice during the 1990s as the Council sought a means of communicating consensus reactions to fast-moving events without the procedural burden of a formal product. The Note by the President S/2017/507, which consolidates working methods, references the informal communications practices of the Council but treats press elements as a matter of practice rather than codified procedure. Unlike resolutions adopted under Chapter VI or VII, press elements carry no binding legal force and create no obligations under Article 25 of the Charter.
The procedural mechanics are deliberately streamlined. Following closed consultations of the whole — typically held in the Consultations Room adjacent to the Council Chamber — the Council President, who rotates monthly in English alphabetical order of member states, may propose that the fifteen members agree on points to convey to the press. A draft, often prepared by the penholder on the relevant file or by the presidency itself, is circulated orally or on paper within the consultations room. Members signal agreement, propose amendments, or block specific language in real time. Because press elements require consensus, any single member can prevent their issuance or strip out individual phrases. Once agreed, the President exits to the stakeout position outside the Consultations Room and reads the elements to assembled correspondents, attributing them to "members of the Security Council."
Several procedural variants exist. Press elements are not circulated as UN documents, receive no S/PRST or S/RES symbol, and are not published in the Official Records. They may be delivered verbatim by the President or paraphrased; the spoken version is the authoritative one. In some cases the President's spokesperson distributes the agreed text informally to the UN Correspondents Association. Where consensus on press elements fails, individual members or regional groups (the E10 elected members, the P3 Western permanent members, or others) may instead deliver national or joint stakeouts presenting their own positions — a practice known as a "joint press stakeout" that has grown markedly since 2018.
Contemporary practice furnishes numerous examples. During the Estonian presidency in May 2020, press elements were issued on the situation in Mali following a peacekeeper fatality. The Norwegian and Mexican presidencies in 2021 used press elements on Myanmar after the February coup when Chinese and Russian objections precluded stronger products. The French presidency repeatedly sought press elements on Syria's humanitarian file. Conversely, on Ukraine after 24 February 2022, press elements have proven impossible because the Russian Federation, as a Council member and party to the conflict, has blocked consensus; Western members have instead resorted to Arria-formula meetings and joint stakeouts coordinated through the United States Mission and the United Kingdom Mission in New York.
Press elements must be distinguished from adjacent Council products. A presidential statement (S/PRST/-) is a formal document adopted in a public meeting, circulated as an official record, and translated into the six UN languages; it requires consensus but carries documentary weight. A press statement (SC/- series, issued by the UN Department of Global Communications) is written, attributed to "the members of the Security Council," distributed in writing to media, and posted on the Council's website — it too requires consensus but is a formal written product. Press elements sit one rung below: oral, unwritten in official channels, and characterized in UN parlance as "elements to the press" or "elements for the press." They differ again from a presidency's national stakeout, which represents only the speaking state.
Edge cases and controversies recur. The line between press elements and a press statement is sometimes blurred when the President distributes the agreed text on paper; veteran correspondents and the Security Council Report think tank have documented disputes over which category applied. Russia and China have at times insisted that agreed language be downgraded from a press statement to press elements precisely to reduce its visibility and avoid creating a written precedent. The reverse pressure — from the E10 and the A3+ (the three African members plus one) — has pushed for upgrading elements into written statements. The COVID-19 period accelerated experimentation, with virtual consultations producing press elements transmitted by videoconference, raising questions about confidentiality of the negotiation.
For the working practitioner — desk officer, mission political coordinator, or Council-watching analyst — press elements are a diagnostic instrument as much as a communicative one. Their issuance signals that the Council can muster consensus on a topic, however thin; their absence after a major incident signals deadlock. Drafting language for press elements is often the first task assigned to a junior diplomat on the Council circuit, and mastery of the genre — terse, factual, devoid of attribution-triggering verbs like "condemn" when consensus is fragile — is a marker of professional competence. For journalists at the UN stakeout and for capitals reading the daily SitRep, the precise wording the President reads, and what was left out, often matters more than the existence of the elements themselves.
Example
On 14 May 2020, Estonian Ambassador Sven Jürgenson, holding the Security Council presidency, read press elements to correspondents at the stakeout expressing condolences for a Chadian peacekeeper killed in MINUSMA operations in Mali.