About
What is this?
UN Transcripts is a public preview tool that automatically generates transcripts from public United Nations meeting recordings, for example UN Web TV (opens in new tab). These transcripts are not official UN records.
Who is it for?
The tool is designed to help anyone who needs quick access to the spoken content of public UN meetings, including:
- Diplomats and delegation staff following proceedings across multiple organs
- Researchers and academics studying public UN debates and voting records
- Journalists covering United Nations affairs
- Civil society organisations engaging in policy discussions
- UN Secretariat staff reviewing public meeting records
What meetings are covered?
The tool covers public meetings recorded and published on public UN platforms, including:
- Security Council
- General Assembly
- Human Rights Council
- Economic and Social Council
- Other inter-governmental bodies as available on UN Web TV
Closed or confidential meetings are not recorded on Web TV and are therefore not covered.
How it works
1
Meeting schedule collection
The system keeps an always up-to-date collection of UN meetings via UN Web TV.
2
Audio transcription
We transcribe the existing UN audio channels — the original "floor" channel and each of the available official UN interpretation channels. No machine translation is applied. Each channel is transcribed by an appropriate speech-to-text model for that language.
3
Speaker identification
After transcription, a second model analyses the text and audio to assign names and affiliations to each speaker where possible. It uses contextual clues — such as the chair introducing delegates, country name mentions, and speaker diarization — together with the official list of participants when available. Where this is not possible, placeholders such as “Speaker 1” are displayed.
4
Topic analysis
The transcript is automatically analysed to identify the main policy topics discussed, using categories relevant to the proceedings (e.g. humanitarian affairs, international peace and security, human rights). The defined topics depend on the content of each video, and do not follow a pre-defined schema. They are for informational purposes only.
5
Official record alignment
Where official verbatim records (procès-verbaux, or PVs) (opens in new tab) or summary records (SR documents) (opens in new tab) exist, the site also makes them available alongside the unofficial automatic transcripts.
Accuracy and limitations
These transcripts are created using automatic speech recognition and are not official records.
They are a faster, unofficial reference, but should not be cited as authoritative. For the official record, please refer to the UN Official Document System (opens in new tab) (verbatim records, summary records, and resolutions).
Automatic transcription is much faster than human transcription but may introduce errors. Common issues include:
- Names, abbreviations or document symbols may be misheard or misspelt
- Accuracy can also vary by speaker and microphone quality
- For very long meetings, not all speakers may be distinguished
Data sources
- UN Web TV — Meeting recordings and metadata, delivered via the platform (publicly accessible at webtv.un.org).
- UN Official Document System — Official verbatim records (PV documents) retrieved from documents.un.org where available.
Status
This tool is in Public Preview. Features, coverage, and accuracy are actively being improved. Feedback is welcome.