Security Council Resolutions as autobiographical texts

Abstract Security Council Resolutions are drafted like autobiographical stories. They are authored and narrated by the Council and all revolve around the same main character: the Security Council itself. They reconfigure time and place in the function of a plot that foregrounds the actions of the Council. However, just like other autobiographical texts, Security Council Resolutions cannot freely express who the Council is. They are bound by rules of genre and tradition. In the case of the Security Council, its autobiographical stories are structured by the format of its Resolutions. In this article, I focus on two such conditions: The Council is bound to talk about itself in the third person, and to constantly recall its earlier autobiographical works. Through a comparison between the format of Security Council Resolutions and two plays by Samuel Beckett, I examine the effects of these conditions on the way in which the Council presents itself to the reader.