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Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter contains the Charter's provisions dealing with the UN General Assembly (UNGA), specifically its composition, functions, powers, voting, and procedures.
Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter contains the Charter's provisions dealing with the UN General Assembly (UNGA), specifically its composition, functions, powers, voting, and procedures.
The chapter on the UNGA appears in the Charter before the chapters on the other five principal organs (UN Security Council, UN Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice, and UN Secretariat). This reflects the UN's founders' view of the General Assembly as the "first" branch of the UN, in much the same way that the placement of the provisions related to the United States Congress in Article One of the United States Constitution before those dealing with the US president and US Supreme Court reflects the Philadelphia Convention's view of Congress as the "first branch" of the US government. [1] Both the US Congress and the UNGA hold the "power of the purse" in regard to their respective organizations. No doubt, the General Assembly also appears first because most decisions (except those dealing with security matters) mentioned later in the Charter require General Assembly assent, and the General Assembly appoints:
Article 9 guarantees each member country a seat in the UNGA, making it the only UN body with universal membership.
Article 10 gives the UNGA power to "discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the present Charter" and to make recommendations on those subjects. This, along with the Article 15 provision requiring the Security Council (UNSC) and other organs to issue reports of their activities to the UNGA, essentially puts the UNGA in the role of overseer over the other UN bodies (there is no reciprocal provision by which the Security Council or other bodies make recommendations as to the powers and functions of the General Assembly).
Article 11 tasks the UNGA with considering "principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments" and making recommendations on the same to the UNSC, which under Chapter V has the responsibility of making more detailed plans in reference to disarmament.
The UNGA is prohibited by Article 12 from making recommendations on matters currently being dealt with by the UNSC, unless requested to do so by the council. However, this has not always prevented the General Assembly from attempting to deal with threats to international peace and security, in cases where the UNSC was deadlocked, by using the framework of the Uniting for Peace resolution (A/RES/377 A).
Article 13 tasks the General Assembly with initiating studies and making recommendations for "promoting international co-operation in the political field and encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification." This provides a clue as to the founders' hopes that the UN as formulated by the original Charter would be a first step toward a much more comprehensive framework of international law, whose development would be coordinated by the General Assembly.
Article 16 grants the UNGA limited power over the trusteeship system.
Article 17 provides that "The General Assembly shall consider and approve the budget of the Organization." The interpretation of section 2 is controversial. It reads:
When the United States fell behind in paying its dues to the UN, some members held that the US was breaking its treaty obligations to bear the expenses of the Organization. In 1995, Malaysia said that any unilateral decision to reduce UN assessments is "illegal and totally unacceptable" and Australia said it "would not accept" a situation whereby "the largest contributor, by its failure to comply with the Charter, would destabilize the operation of the UN". [2] Another interpretation, advanced by the Cato Institute, is that "the intent is to make certain that the world body is financed by countries, not special interests outside the organization". [3]
Article 18 gives each state one vote in the UN General Assembly. The interpretation of Sections 2 and 3 is controversial. They read:
The question of what constitutes an "important question" arose during the discussion of General Assembly Resolution 2758, which expelled the Taiwanese delegation from the UN and replaced it with the People's Republic of China. The General Assembly had declared, by a vote of 59 to 55 with 15 abstentions, this to be an unimportant question that did not require the consent of two-thirds of the members. The delegates of the Republic of China protested that this decision was illegal, and subsequently left the assembly hall.
Article 18 was designed to provide a more workable system than that established by Article 5 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which provided for a consensus-based system in which "decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall require the agreement of all the Members of the League represented at the meeting."
Article 19 provides that any country that falls two years behind in its dues will lose its vote in the General Assembly. The United States, when it was withholding dues in protest over the slow pace of UN reform, has historically paid just enough at the end of each year to avoid losing its vote under this provision.
Rule 161 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly states that the Committee on Contributions shall "advise the General Assembly ... on the action to be taken with regard to the application of Article 19 of the Charter". [4]
According to the New York Times, "The fact that a member is in arrears and thus not entitled to vote is, by established practice, determined by the Secretary-General through computation and reported to the Assembly by him or by the Committee on Contributions. Comparable situations in specialized agencies of the United Nations have shown that a member's loss of voting rights is mandatory and automatic and that the fact of his debt is a 'ministerial, mathematical calculation' rather than a political decision." [5]
After a World Court ruling in the Certain Expenses case made it clear that Soviet and Soviet bloc countries, France, and Latin American countries had defaulted on peacekeeping debts, during the 19th session (1964-1965), no votes at all were taken in the General Assembly. [6] It was ultimately decided to ignore that default rather than take away those countries' vote in the General Assembly. U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg declared that "it is not in the world interest to have the work of the General Assembly immobilized in these troubled days." [7]
In 1963, an announcement of Haiti's arrears by the president of the General Assembly at the opening plenary meeting was considered unnecessary because a formal vote count in the presence of a representative of Haiti did not take place. [8]
Circa 1969, the government of Haiti claimed it was unable to pay its dues due to cyclones Betty, Flora, and Ines, which over a period of seven years destroyed half its agriculture, its livestock, and its light industry. Haiti also cited the negative effects on tourism of invasions such as the 20 May 1968 invasion. [9]
As of late April 1998, 29 UN member countries were in arrears by more than their preceding two years' assessments and thus were ineligible to vote in the General Assembly. [6] In 1999, faced with the possibility of Article 19 sanctions, President Bill Clinton agreed to withhold funding from organizations that supported abortion in exchange for Congress's agreement to repay U.S. arrears to the United Nations. [10]
In June 2021 Iran briefly lost voting rights due to non-payment, which Iran attributed to United States sanctions. Shortly after the loss of voting rights was announced negotiations with the United States led to money being released to pay the arrears and thus restore voting rights. [11]
Article 22 allows the UN to establish subsidiary bodies. This has been the basis for proposals to establish a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly without formal amendment of the UN Charter.
The United Nations (UN) is a diplomatic and political international organization with the intended purpose of maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, achieving international cooperation, and serving as a center for coordinating the actions of member nations. It is widely recognised as the world's largest international organization. The UN is headquartered in New York City, in international territory with certain privileges extraterritorial to the United States, and the UN has other offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague, where the International Court of Justice is headquartered at the Peace Palace.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and approving any changes to the UN Charter. Its powers as outlined in the United Nations Charter include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing military action. The UNSC is the only UN body with authority to issue resolutions that are binding on member states.
The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 79th session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter.
The United Nations Trusteeship Council is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests of their inhabitants and of international peace and security.
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the United Nations. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council.
A United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) is a United Nations resolution adopted by the Security Council (UNSC), the United Nations (UN) 15-member body charged with "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security".
A United Nations General Assembly resolution is a decision or declaration voted on by all member states of the United Nations in the General Assembly.
The United Nations System consists of the United Nations' six principal bodies, the Specialized Agencies and related organizations. The UN System includes subsidiary bodies such as the separately administered funds and programmes, research and training institutes, and other subsidiary entities. Some of these organizations predate the founding of the United Nations in 1945 and were inherited after the dissolution of the League of Nations.
The tenth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly centers on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The session was first convened in 1997 under the president of the General Assembly, Razali Ismail of Malaysia. This occurred when the Security Council failed to make a decision on the issue at two different meetings. The session is currently ongoing as of October 26, 2023.
An Emergency Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly is an unscheduled meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to make urgent recommendations on a particular issue. Such recommendations can include collective measures and can include the use of armed force when necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression when the United Nations Security Council fails to exercise its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security due to lack of unanimity of its permanent ("veto") members.
A United Nations resolution is a formal text adopted by a United Nations (UN) body. Although any UN body can issue resolutions, in practice most resolutions are issued by the Security Council or the General Assembly, in the form of United Nations Security Council resolutions and United Nations General Assembly resolutions, respectively.
The Russian Federation succeeded to the Soviet Union's seat, including its permanent membership on the Security Council in the United Nations after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, which originally co-founded the UN in 1945. The succession was supported by the USSR's former members and was not objected to by the UN membership; Russia accounted for more than 75% of the Soviet Union's economy, the majority of its population and 75% of its land mass; in addition, the history of the Soviet Union began in Russia with the October Revolution in 1917 in Petrograd. If there was to be a successor to the Soviet seat on the Security Council among the former Soviet republics, these factors made Russia seem a logical choice. Nonetheless, due to the rather inflexible wording of the UN Charter and its lack of provision for succession, the succession's technical legality has been questioned by some international lawyers.
The United Nations Security Council veto power is the power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to veto any decision other than a "procedural" decision.
United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 377 A, the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, states that in any cases where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity among its five permanent members (P5), fails to act as required to maintain international security and peace, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue appropriate recommendations to UN members for collective measures, including the use of armed force when necessary, in order to maintain or restore international security and peace. It was adopted 3 November 1950, after fourteen days of Assembly discussions, by a vote of 52 to 5, with 2 abstentions. The resolution was designed to provide the UN with an alternative avenue for action when at least one P5 member uses its veto to obstruct the Security Council from carrying out its functions mandated by the UN Charter.
Since its creation in 1945, the United Nations Security Council has undergone one reform, increasing its membership from 4 to 10 non-permanent members. Nonetheless, this first and only reform has not left the global community satisfied, which has since then relentlessly called for a more all-encompassing reform. Reform of the Security Council encompasses five key issues: categories of membership, the question of the veto held by the five permanent members, regional representation, the size of an enlarged Council and its working methods, and the Security Council-General Assembly relationship. Despite a common agreement amongst member states, regional groups and academics on the need for reform, its feasibility is compromised by the difficulty to find an approach that would please all parties. Any reform of the Security Council would require the agreement of at least two-thirds of United Nations member states in a vote in the General Assembly and must be ratified by two-thirds of Member States. All of the permanent members (P5) of the UNSC, which hold veto rights, must also agree.
Corpus separatum was the internationalization proposal for Jerusalem and its surrounding area as part of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly with a two-thirds majority in November 1947. According to the Partition Plan, the city of Jerusalem would be brought under international governance, conferring it a special status due to its shared importance for the Abrahamic religions. The legal base ("Statute") for this arrangement was to be reviewed after ten years and put to a referendum. The corpus separatum was again one of the main issues of the post-war Lausanne Conference of 1949, besides the borders of Israel and the question of the Palestinian right of return.
Chapter V of the United Nations Charter contains provisions establishing the United Nations Security Council.
Chapter III of the United Nations Charter lays out the principal organs of the United Nations, and announces a gender nondiscrimination policy for United Nations hiring.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2623 called for the eleventh emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly on the subject of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Albania and the United States introduced the resolution before the United Nations Security Council, which adopted it on 27 February 2022. Russia voted against while China, India and the United Arab Emirates abstained. As this was a procedural resolution, no permanent member could exercise their veto power.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES‑11/1 is a resolution of the eleventh emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly, adopted on 2 March 2022. It deplored Russia's invasion of Ukraine and demanded a full withdrawal of Russian forces and a reversal of its decision to recognise the self-declared People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
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