The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Currently in its 77th session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter. The UNGA is responsible for the UN budget, appointing the non-permanent members to the Security Council, appointing the UN secretary-general, receiving reports from other parts of the UN system, and making recommendations through resolutions. It also establishes numerous subsidiary organs to advance or assist in its broad mandate. The UNGA is the only UN organ wherein all member states have equal representation.
The United Nations member states are the 193 sovereign states that are members of the United Nations (UN) and have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The UN is the world's largest intergovernmental organization.
Western Sahara is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the remaining 80% of the territory is occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco. Its surface area amounts to 266,000 square kilometres (103,000 sq mi). It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara.
Western Sahara, formerly the Spanish colony of Spanish Sahara, is a disputed territory claimed by both the Kingdom of Morocco and the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro, which is an independence movement based in Algeria. The Annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco took place in two stages, in 1976 and 1979, and is considered illegal under international law.
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.
China is one of the charter members of the United Nations and is one of five permanent members of its Security Council.
The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara is the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, established in 1991 under United Nations Security Council Resolution 690 as part of the Settlement Plan, which had paved way for a cease-fire in the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front over the contested territory of Western Sahara.
Issues relating to the State of Israel and aspects of the Arab–Israeli conflict and more recently the Iran-Israel conflict occupy repeated annual debate times, resolutions and resources at the United Nations. Since its founding in 1948, the United Nations Security Council, has adopted 79 resolutions directly related to the Arab–Israeli conflict as of January 2010.
The United Nations General Assembly has granted observer status to international organizations, entities, and non-member states, to enable them to participate in the work of the United Nations General Assembly, though with limitations. The General Assembly determines the privileges it will grant to each observer, beyond those laid down in a 1986 Conference on treaties between states and international organizations. Exceptionally, the European Union (EU) was in 2011 granted the right to speak in debates, to submit proposals and amendments, the right of reply, to raise points of order and to circulate documents, etc. As of May 2011, the EU is the only international organization to hold these enhanced rights, which has been likened to the rights of full membership, short of the right to vote.
The United Nations Security Council veto power is the power of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to veto any "substantive" resolution. They also happen to be the nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. However, a permanent member's abstention or absence does not prevent a draft resolution from being adopted. This veto power does not apply to "procedural" votes, as determined by the permanent members themselves. A permanent member can also block the selection of a Secretary-General, although a formal veto is unnecessary since the vote is taken behind closed doors.
Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter defines a non-self-governing territory (NSGT) as a territory "whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government". In practice, an NSGT is a territory deemed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to be "non-self-governing". Chapter XI of the UN Charter also includes a "Declaration on Non-Self-Governing Territories" that the interests of the occupants of dependent territories are paramount and requires member states of the United Nations in control of such territories to submit annual information reports concerning the development of those territories. Since 1946, the UNGA has maintained a list of non-self governing territories under member states' control. Since its inception, dozens of territories have been removed from the list, typically when they attained independence or internal self-government, while other territories have been added as new administering countries joined the United Nations or the General Assembly reassessed the status of certain territories.
The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Western Sahara was a 1975 advisory, non-binding opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of two questions presented to it by the UN General Assembly under Resolution 3292 regarding the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Morocco had approached the UN to adjudicate its and Mauritania's claims over the territory.
The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, also known as the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, was a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly during its fifteenth session, that affirmed independence for countries and peoples under colonial rule.
At Italy's instigation, a resolution for a moratorium on the death penalty was presented by the EU in partnership with eight co-author member States to the General Assembly of the United Nations, calling for general suspension of capital punishment throughout the world. It was twice affirmed: first, on 15 November 2007 by the Third Committee, and then subsequently reaffirmed on 18 December by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 62/149. New Zealand played a central role facilitating agreement between the co-author group and other supporters.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 377, adopted on 22 October 1975, dealt with the situation in Western Sahara. The Council reaffirmed recent work by the General Assembly and noted a letter from the Permanent Representative of Spain. The Council then invoked Article 34 of the UN Charter to request the Secretary-General enter into immediate consultations with the parties concerned and interested and to report to the Security Council as soon as possible on the results.
United Nations Security Council resolution 690, adopted unanimously on 29 April 1991, after recalling resolutions 621 (1988) and 658 (1990) and noting a report by the Secretary-General on the situation in Western Sahara, the Council approved the report and decided to establish the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) in accordance with the Secretary-General's recommendations. The Mission was to implement the Settlement Plan for a referendum of self-determination for the people of Western Sahara.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1282, adopted on 14 December 1999, after reaffirming all previous resolutions on the question of the Western Sahara, in particular resolutions 1238 (1999) and 1263 (1999), the council extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) until 29 February 2000 in order to complete the identification of voters.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 34/37, titled Question of Western Sahara, is a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly about the situation in Western Sahara, which was adopted on 21 November 1979 at the 34th session of the General Assembly. It became the eighteenth United Nations General Assembly document concerning the situation of that territory.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262 was adopted on 27 March 2014 by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea and entitled "territorial integrity of Ukraine". The nonbinding resolution, which was supported by 100 United Nations member states, affirmed the General Assembly's commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and underscored the invalidity of the 2014 Crimean referendum. Eleven nations voted against the resolution, while 58 abstained, and a further 24 states were absent when the vote took place.
The Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space document is a 1981 UN resolution that reaffirms the fundamental principles of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and advocates for a ban on the weaponization of space."
