If 9 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council have affirmed a procedural decision, how many permanent members must agree?

In the context of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), procedural decisions differ from substantive decisions in terms of voting requirements. For procedural decisions, only a simple majority of the members present and voting is necessary. Given that there are 15 members in total, if 9 members have already affirmed the procedural decision, this means a majority has been reached.

The key aspect here is that procedural decisions do not require unanimous consent from the permanent members. This is unlike substantive decisions, where a veto from any of the five permanent members (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) would result in a failure of the motion. Since procedural matters can be passed with the agreement of the majority of the members, there is no need for a specific number of permanent members to agree when the threshold has already been met by the affirmations of the non-permanent members. Thus, it is indeed possible for a procedural decision to be affirmed without needing any agreement from the permanent members or even any specific number of their consent.