After the Second World War, the United Nations is the main organization on whose activity, no matter how pompous it may sound, is the world. The United Nations is discussing all the major problems of our time, and the parties to the conflict are trying to reach a consensus, suggesting the use of diplomatic rather than forceful methods. Which organ is the most important in the whole UN? The General Assembly is the heart of this notorious organization.
What is this organ?
This is the name of the main meeting forum. Its peculiarity is that only here all the countries of the world that have their representatives in the UN can discuss the most acute international problems in a multilateral format. What is this UN component responsible for? The General Assembly plays a crucial role in the establishment and development of international law.
How it works?
Questions are discussed at the sessions. After each of them, a resolution is adopted based on the topics discussed. For the draft resolution to be approved, it is necessary that at least 50% of all delegates vote for its adoption. There are a few points to consider. First, what can this UN body do? The General Assembly makes resolutions, but they are not binding or even recommendatory. Secondly, despite this, none of the delegations could veto decisions made.
The Assembly was approved in 1945, when the whole world started, finally realizing all the grief and horror experienced by many peoples during the Second World War. Historically, the most intensive work is carried out between September and December. In principle, if necessary, members of the Assembly can meet at other periods, if the situation in the world really requires it.
Thus, according to the Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in early December 1948, the basic norms of universal norms of ethics, morality and humanism, which every state undertakes to abide by, were finally fixed. In particular, this document contains a sharp rejection of any torture and humiliation of universal dignity in relation to captured military personnel.
Why is this UN body needed?
So,
the United Nations (UN), the resolution of which can put an end to many negative processes in the world, in its internal Charter clearly attributes the functions and powers that the Assembly we have described:
- Its most important function is to jointly consider the basic principles of maintaining peace and prosperity. Its recommendations may concern absolutely any issues, and the arms sphere is no exception. Based on the outcome of the discussion, a resolution is adopted, which in some cases may still be advisory in nature.
- Also, members of this body can openly discuss any issues that one way or another relate to the stability of the global geopolitical situation. In addition, the Assembly may make recommendations, unless the issue at stake is in the field of view of the UN Security Council.
- Specialists of the Assembly can prepare research methods and directly implement them in order to subsequently give more accurate and useful recommendations. This is especially true for the development of international law, as well as guarantees for the observance of universal norms in all spheres of activity of world governments.
- Also, this body can give detailed recommendations for all situations, the uncontrolled development of which is fraught with serious upheaval and disruption of relations between different nations.
- The UN Security Council regularly shares reports with its office. The Assembly can discuss them, as well as make various comments that are accepted by higher authorities.
- A very important task of the Assembly is to adopt the UN budget, as well as to determine the size of contributions for each country whose members are members of this organization.
- Appoint the Secretary General, as well as elect temporary members to the Security Council (based on the results of the general vote).
In what order are sessions held?
Any session is opened by the fact that representatives of various countries are debating on the most acute and important issues that have accumulated since the last meeting. It is important to note that at the same time everyone can openly express their opinion and receive comprehensive and detailed answers. All meetings are carefully recorded for their subsequent analysis, on the basis of which recommendations will be made.
Why is
the United Nations (UN) considering all these projects
? The resolution of this body, devoted to all the most important global problems, is never adopted from scratch. All UN decisions can only be implemented as a result of a joint debate at which all the most important issues are fully discussed.
Only after each country exercises its voting right in the general debate does the discussion of the issues on the agenda begin on the merits. It should be noted that there can be a lot of them. So, at a relatively recent meeting it turned out that almost 170 items are on the agenda! How is the discussion going on in this case?
The fact is that the Assembly itself consists of six committees. Among the members of the latter are distributed the main issues that go through all stages of the discussion. At a subsequent plenary meeting, the Assembly President is presented with a preliminary draft resolution.
She goes through an additional discussion. If approved, at least 50% of the meeting is finalized. After that, the resolution of the UN General Assembly may in some cases even be referred to the Security Council. This happens if it touched on particularly important and pressing problems that directly threaten global stability.
Which units represent the six additional committees?
Since we have already raised this issue, it should be further transcribed. So, six committees include the following units:
- World Disarmament and Security Division. It contains all the questions that one way or another affect the areas of excessive use of weapons.
- Committee of economic and financial problems. On it, in particular, are the problems of hunger and poverty in the countries of Central Africa.
- Department of Humanities and Social Policy. Perhaps one of the most important units, as it deals with the observance of human rights. In addition, the recommendations of this committee are most often accepted for consideration by the Security Council. This means that as a result, a resolution of the UN General Assembly can be agreed upon, which has a binding interpretation.
- The fourth section is politics and issues related to decolonization in one way or another. His competence is extremely broad. In addition to resolving common political problems, the members of this committee are engaged in financial and social assistance to those states that used to be colonies of some European powers.
- Administrative Affairs and Budget Committee. It mainly deals with the office, which includes financing issues, so the rights of the UN General Assembly in this regard are extremely large.
- The Sixth Committee, it is also a department of law. As it is easy to understand, he is busy developing and adopting the norms of international law. Also, this department can oversee the implementation of its recommendations.
What decisions can be made here?
Each state from the Assembly has exactly one vote. Decisions of especially important issues directly related to stability and peace can be taken only with at least 2/3 of the votes for or against. In other cases, resolutions may be approved on the basis of a simple number of votes (but not less than 50%).
General Committee - composition and main functions
The most important committee is composed of a chairman, as well as 21 alternates, who are responsible for the work of the six additional committees as well as for general organizational and administrative matters. Previously, this body performed much more functions, but the reform of the UN General Assembly significantly reduced their list. From now on, it includes the following tasks:
- Adoption of the agenda and allocation of topics to additional committees in the event that there are too many issues.
- General organization of work and responsibility for holding all plenary meetings of the Assembly.
What is the role of this structure in global security?
70 The UN General Assembly was marked by a speech by President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin. In his lengthy speech, he raised many extremely important, but very sensitive issues. In particular, the president of Russia has repeatedly hinted that the center of "dominance" in the world, the main representative of which spoke about the "exclusivity," in recent years has ceased to respond to UN decisions in general.
Why was this said? Anyone who was interested in politics in recent decades, it was clear that the Russian leader hinted at the United States. The invasion of Vietnam, Libya, the bombing of Yugoslavia in the early 90s - all this was committed either without the approval of the Security Council, or it was issued in hindsight. It is not surprising that in recent years, opinions are increasingly being heard that the format of the Assembly is completely outdated, and the whole organization needs to be completely “dismantled”. But is it really so?
Yes, the organization has certain problems, but they have not disappeared anywhere since the League of Nations. Most countries nevertheless listen to the opinion of the United Nations and implement its peacekeeping initiatives. This helps preserve the world order and prevent the transformation of minor conflicts into truly major wars. So how are the UN General Assembly and international security related?
Conclusions and overview of some problems
So, for the entire time of its existence (from 1944 to 2016) this organization can be confidently called the most influential in the whole world. Thus, the declaration of the UN General Assembly more than once was able to prevent those conflicts in which the states that originally unleashed them were completely bogged down. Of course, not always everything went so well. For example, the following conclusions were drawn from the results of the next Arab-Israeli conflict:
- Firstly, sadly, in the coming decades, the complete eradication of the causes of this war is impossible, since they include deep internal contradictions between all the peoples living in this region.
- Secondly, it is this conflict that constantly reveals contradictions both in the Assembly and in the UN Security Council: on the one hand, the nation has the right to self-determination, on the other hand, the people are free to resolve territorial claims.
Based on this information, it can be concluded that the implementation of the so-called roadmap ”, that is, a plan for resolving a particular conflict, must take into account all the features of the region in which it developed. Unfortunately, far from all sessions of the UN General Assembly touched upon this painful problem.
The fact that the parties to the conflict do not trust the UN decisions at all is also very difficult to solve this problem. At times, only the influence of intermediaries represented by the United States or the Russian Federation helps to prevent serious consequences, while the Arabs and Israelis practically do not listen to the opinion of the UN itself. How can a way out of this impasse be found?
Here, the organization must show a certain degree of flexibility. The proposed resolutions on the Israeli issue are a set of compromises adopted by countries for which the problems in this region are generally indifferent. In such a delicate situation, as some UN experts believe, one should not listen to the faceless opinion of the majority, but to the decisions of the countries directly involved in this conflict.
Disaster in rwanda
Also, the documents of the UN General Assembly indicate that at one time the organization’s members did not attach due importance to the events that spilled over into one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last millennium, which killed thousands of people. The conflict in Rwanda was extremely complicated for the reason that it was based not only on religious, but also deep ethnic contradictions.
Moreover, the ethnic factor was the main factor. The difficulty was also that from the very beginning the members of the Assembly could not firmly decide which nationality to take. Such throwings were mistaken in their essence: the outbreak of the conflict should have been stopped immediately. When two ethnic groups are at odds within one country, this is an ordinary civil war, fraught with huge sacrifices and forever dividing many generations of people living there.
In addition, for some reason, economic factors were completely forgotten. In particular, it has long been proven that with a more or less stable economic growth, conflicts of this kind are possible, but they rarely reach their peak (without replenishment from the outside). But in Rwanda over the course of the 80s, the economy was rapidly degrading, constantly losing ground. Again, in those conditions it was necessary to act urgently, but for some reason initially no action was taken.
So we found out what the General Assembly is for as part of the UN.