Latvia Takes UN Security Council Presidency for First Time as AI, Ukraine and International Law Top November Agenda

On November 1, 2026, Latvia took charge of the United Nations Security Council for a month, the first time in the country’s history that it has held the rotating presidency of the fifteen-member body. The moment arrives at a crowded point in the Council’s year, with wars, peacekeeping renewals, a court election and a leadership selection all passing through the same chamber, and it gives a small Baltic state an unusually visible platform in world diplomacy.

Riga has said it will use that platform for three linked purposes: defending international law and the Charter of the United Nations, keeping Russia’s war against Ukraine high on the agenda, and examining how fast technological change affects peace and security. The programme is deliberately narrow in its signature events and deliberately broad in its ambition, because most of the month’s business is already fixed by mandate. That is what the Latvia UN Security Council presidency November 2026 means in practice.

1. A First Chair After Decades of Waiting

1.1 How Latvia reached the Council

Latvia was elected to the Security Council in June 2025, with broad support from member states, for a two-year term covering 2026 and 2027. That election itself was the culmination of a long-standing foreign policy goal, since the country had never previously sat on the Council. Its term began on January 1, 2026, alongside five permanent members — the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France and Russia — and nine other elected members, including Denmark, Greece, Panama, Colombia, Bahrain, Pakistan, Liberia, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Council’s agenda during that term runs to more than sixty issues, from country conflicts and sanctions to humanitarian aid, climate security and the protection of civilians.

The presidency rotates each month in alphabetical order among the fifteen members, and Latvia’s turn fell in November 2026, following Greece in October. Liberia is scheduled to follow in December. The rotation is mechanical, but the timing matters: November also brings Latvia’s statehood commemorations, recalling its 1918 declaration of independence, so the first presidency coincides with a month in which national identity is already in focus at home. For diplomats in Riga, that coincidence turns a procedural turn into a symbolic one.

1.2 What the rotating presidency actually controls

The president chairs all formal meetings and informal consultations, sets the order of business within the constraints of the existing programme, speaks for the Council in certain settings, and can add one or two signature events to highlight a chosen theme. About ninety percent of the agenda, however, is made up of mandated and regular meetings that the presidency cannot simply displace. A president therefore shapes emphasis, sequencing and tone more than it rewrites the calendar.

That distinction is important for judging November. Latvia will not be able to force a decision that a permanent member opposes, and it will not be able to invent a new peacekeeping mission or sanctions regime on its own. What it can do is decide which mandated items receive high-level attention, which outside voices are invited to brief, and how forcefully the Council’s own statements frame a crisis. In a body where procedure is often politics by another name, those choices carry real weight.

2. Three Priorities Riga Has Named

2.1 International law and the UN Charter first

Latvia’s foreign ministry has placed respect for international law and the principles of the UN Charter at the top of its presidency priorities. Foreign Minister Baiba Braze has framed the point bluntly in public remarks reported at the start of the month, saying borders should not be changed by force and that the time of empires is over. The language is pointed, but its target is general: a rules-based order in which aggression is not normalised simply because it continues.

That emphasis connects directly to Latvia’s own history and geography. As a Baltic state that regained independence after decades of Soviet rule, and as a NATO member on the alliance’s eastern edge, Latvia treats the Charter’s ban on the threat or use of force against territorial integrity as a matter of national security, not abstract theory. Its diplomats argue that if the Council stops treating violations as exceptional, the system that smaller states rely on for protection begins to erode.

2.2 Ukraine at the centre, not at the margins

The second priority is to keep Russia’s war against Ukraine high on the Council’s agenda and to prevent it from fading into routine business. Latvia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Sanita Pavluta-Deslandes, has said Riga is committed to preventing the normalisation of Russian aggression and to keeping the war among the key issues before the Council. During 2026, Latvia and its European partners have repeatedly convened Council meetings on Ukraine, including emergency sessions and discussions of humanitarian consequences.

Officials in Riga have pointed to sixteen Council meetings on Ukraine initiated with European partners during the year, covering civilian harm, infrastructure attacks, the deportation of Ukrainian children and humanitarian aid. The presidency month offers a chance to consolidate that record rather than start it: to ensure Ukraine is discussed not only when a new attack makes headlines, but as a standing item whose legal and humanitarian dimensions are documented meeting by meeting.

3. The Technology Question

3.1 Why AI is on a peace-and-security agenda

The third priority is the impact of emerging technologies, above all artificial intelligence, on international peace and security. Latvia’s envoy has described technology as an established priority for the fifteen-member body, not a novelty topic, and has said the Council will focus its November agenda on the peace and security implications of AI and emerging technologies. The concern spans several fields at once: autonomous weapons, cyberattacks, disinformation at scale, and the use of new tools to target civilian infrastructure.

The Council is not, by Latvia’s own account, trying to write global AI regulation. Its ambassador has clarified that wider rulemaking remains the responsibility of the General Assembly, and that the Council’s task is narrower: to understand how technology changes conflict, how it can be used to prevent or escalate violence, and where existing international law already applies to new tools. That framing matters, because it keeps the debate inside the Council’s peace-and-security mandate instead of turning it into a general technology conference.

3.2 The new expert group on technology, peace and security

A concrete institutional step preceded the presidency. On October 23, the Council established an Informal Expert Group on Technology, Peace and Security at the initiative of Latvia and Greece, and its first meeting is scheduled during Latvia’s presidency month. Latvia and Greece will co-chair the group in 2026, and ten Council members have joined it. It is described as the first Council format created specifically to assess how new technologies affect peace and security.

Expert groups of this kind do not take binding decisions, but they shape what the Council knows before it decides. They allow members to hear technical briefings, compare national experiences and test whether a fast-moving threat is being understood in the same way by different capitals. Latvia also co-chairs, with Colombia and Panama, the Council’s Informal Expert Group on Climate, Peace and Security, linking the technology work to a wider effort to treat non-traditional threats as security questions.

4. The November Calendar, Week by Week

4.1 The November 3 court election and early business

Latvia’s presidency began with immediate, high-profile business. On November 3, the Council was scheduled to take part in the election of judges to the International Court of Justice, a process that runs in parallel in the Council and the General Assembly. Latvia therefore presided over the Council’s side of a judicial selection that helps shape the world’s principal court, at the very start of its month.

Early November also set the tone for how Latvia would handle urgent business. Reports at the start of the month noted that Latvia was calling for an emergency session over a Russian strike on an aid centre in Ukraine that left at least twenty-nine people dead, a reminder that the mandated calendar can be interrupted by events on the ground. Whether and how that session unfolded is part of the month’s early test: a presidency is judged first by how it responds to a crisis, not by its planned signature events.

4.2 The November 24 signature debate on conflict and technology

The signature event of the Latvian presidency is scheduled for November 24 as a high-level ministerial open debate titled Conflict resolution in an era of rapid technological change. Open debates allow non-Council members and outside experts to speak, so the session is designed to be broader than a closed consultation among fifteen ambassadors. Ministers are expected to attend, giving the debate a political weight that a routine briefing would lack.

The choice of theme is deliberate. By linking conflict resolution — the Council’s oldest task — to rapid technological change, Latvia is asking whether mediation, peacekeeping and post-war reconstruction still work in the same way when drones, cyber tools and automated systems are part of the battlefield. The debate will not produce a resolution by itself, but it could shape the language the Council uses when it next authorises a mission or responds to a cyber incident.

5. The Middle East and Peacekeeping Tests

5.1 Gaza, the Board of Peace and the November 30 debate

The Council is scheduled to mark the one-year milestone of Resolution 2803 with the release of the semi-annual Board of Peace report on November 17, culminating in a debate on Palestine on November 30, the final day of Latvia’s presidency. That sequence places Gaza and the wider Palestinian question at the end of the month, giving Latvia the task of chairing a debate that is likely to expose deep divisions among members.

The context is already sensitive. The United States has circulated a draft resolution authorising a Gaza stabilisation force under a Board of Peace, a proposal covered separately in recent Council reporting, and Israel’s coalition talks are in their second week after an election that produced no clear winner. Latvia’s role in the November 30 debate will be to manage that discussion fairly while keeping its own priorities — international law and civilian protection — visible in the chair’s handling of the meeting.

5.2 Lebanon, Yemen, Abyei and the Central African Republic

Mid-November brings consultations on Lebanon and Resolution 1701, to review the Secretary-General’s report and evaluate the post-UNIFIL transition, with the aim of preventing a security vacuum in southern Lebanon ahead of the mission’s expiration at year-end. The Council must also consider potential meetings on Yemen and mandate renewals for peacekeeping missions in Abyei and the Central African Republic. Each of these items tests a different part of the Council’s toolkit.

Lebanon raises questions about what follows a long-running peacekeeping presence; Yemen raises questions about humanitarian access and regional escalation; Abyei and the Central African Republic raise questions about whether missions with limited resources can still protect civilians. None of these will be settled by a single presidency, but the way Latvia sequences briefings, drafts statements and reports outcomes will influence whether the Council appears coherent or divided as those mandates come up for renewal.

6. Ukraine, Veto Power and the Limits of the Chair

6.1 Keeping a war visible when decisions are blocked

Latvia’s ambassador has acknowledged a hard truth about the Council: because Russia holds a veto as a permanent member, the Council cannot adopt decisions directed against Russia’s war in Ukraine. She has said the Council is not the place where the outcome of the war will be decided. That candour shapes expectations for November. The presidency’s value on Ukraine lies less in passing resolutions than in keeping evidence, testimony and legal argument on the record.

That record-keeping function is not trivial. Council meetings create a public, verbatim account of what states said, what evidence was presented and which legal principles were invoked. For a country seeking accountability later, through courts or other forums, that account matters. Latvia’s emphasis on documenting crimes and countering propaganda therefore fits a longer strategy: even when a veto blocks action today, the Council can preserve the facts that future proceedings may need.

6.2 Disinformation, documentation and accountability

Alongside Ukraine, Latvia has said it will address cyber threats, disinformation and hybrid attacks. Those threats blur the line between war and peacetime, because a false alert, a hacked emergency app or a manipulated video can cause panic or undermine trust without a single shot being fired. Recent reporting on false nuclear alerts in Ukraine and Russia after hacks, and on cyberattacks affecting supermarkets in Europe, illustrates why Council members now treat information and infrastructure as security issues.

Latvia’s approach links documentation to accountability. Its officials have said they will continue to expose and document Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, including attacks on grain infrastructure, energy systems and maritime security, and to highlight the war’s impact on global food security and on people far from the front line. The goal, as stated by Riga, is not only to condemn, but to build a record that can support legal processes and to prevent the war’s consequences from being treated as someone else’s problem.

7. What Latvia’s Month Signals Beyond New York

7.1 A small state, a large stage, and November statehood

For Latvia, the presidency is also a statement about small states in a system dominated by great powers. With a population of under two million, Latvia is among the smallest countries ever to chair the Council, yet the rotating system gives it the same procedural authority for a month as any permanent member. That equality of procedure is one of the few places in international politics where size does not decide who chairs the meeting.

The November timing reinforces that message at home. Statehood commemorations recall the 1918 declaration that founded the modern Latvian state, and the presidency allows Riga to present its international role as a continuation of that independence story: a country that fought to exist now helps run the body charged with preventing war. Whether that narrative resonates beyond Latvia will depend on whether the month produces meetings that other states remember.

7.2 The next Secretary-General and the Council’s wider role

The selection process for the next UN Secretary-General is currently under way, and the Council’s members — including Latvia — will play a decisive role in that choice. The presidency therefore arrives at a moment when the Council is not only managing crises, but also shaping the leadership of the wider United Nations system. How Latvia handles consultations on that process, and how transparently it reports them, will be watched by states that are not on the Council.

Beyond the leadership question, the presidency tests whether the Council can still adapt. Its agenda now includes more than sixty issues, from children and armed conflict to sanctions, non-proliferation, women, peace and security, and climate security. A presidency that treats those issues as a checklist will be forgotten; one that connects them — showing, for example, how technology, climate and conflict interact — may leave a working method behind after its month ends.

8. What Remains Unconfirmed

8.1 Questions still unanswered

Several important questions remain open as November begins. It is not yet confirmed how the emergency session on the aid-centre strike will be framed, what statement if any the Council will adopt, or whether the session will lead to further action. It is not yet confirmed which ministers will attend the November 24 debate, what text if any will emerge from it, or how the expert group on technology will report its first findings.

It is also not yet confirmed what the November 17 Board of Peace report will conclude, how the November 30 Palestine debate will be chaired in detail, or what positions individual Council members will take on Lebanon, Yemen, Abyei and the Central African Republic renewals. The full list of briefers for the month, the exact wording of any Council statements, and the outcome of the Secretary-General selection consultations all remain to be confirmed as the month proceeds.

8.2 What to watch before November 30

Readers following this presidency should watch five markers before the month ends. First, whether the November 24 debate produces language that other members reuse in later resolutions. Second, whether the technology expert group’s first meeting sets a work programme or remains a single discussion. Third, whether the November 30 debate changes the dynamics around Gaza or simply restates existing positions.

Fourth, whether Lebanon’s post-UNIFIL transition is given a concrete timetable or left to drift toward year-end. Fifth, whether Ukraine remains a standing item with documented evidence, or fades once the early-November emergency has passed. If Latvia’s month is judged a success, it will be because those markers show a Council that was chaired with clarity, even when it could not agree — and because the record it leaves behind is useful long after Liberia takes the chair in December. Until those outcomes are known, this presidency should be read as a beginning, not a verdict, and its claims should be weighed against what the Council actually does in the weeks ahead.

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