Researched by Felix Khonte
The United Nations was founded in 1945 by 51 countries after World War 11 to maintain international peace and security, prevent future conflicts, develop friendly relations between nations, achieve international cooperation and promote and encourage respect for human rights. The organization’s founding was aimed to establish a new international order and learn from the failures of the League of Nations, ensuring that future global cooperation and security could prevent the devastation of past conflicts,
THE FOUNDING CONTEXT: The UN’s formation was a direct response to the horrors of World War 11, which highlighted the need for a global body to prevent future conflicts.
EARLY DISCUSSIONS: Allied leaders, including those from the UK, China, the US, and the Soviet Union, discussed the idea of a post-war international organization during the war.
BLUEPRINT AND CHARTER: Representatives met at Dumbarton Oaks in 1944 to create the blueprint for the organization, and 50 countries met in San Francisco, to draft and sign the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, laying the foundation for international cooperation. Poland later joined, bringing the number of founding members to 51.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The United Nations has four main aims as outlined in the UN Charter.
(1) Maintain international peace and security: To take collective measures to prevent and remove threats to peace, suppress acts of aggression, and use peaceful means to resolve international disputes.
(2) Develop Friendly Relations Among Nations: To foster relationships based on respect for equal rights and semi-determination and to strengthen universal peace.
(3) Achieve International Cooperation: To solve economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems through international cooperation.
(4) Promote Human Rights: To encourage and promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all people.
(5) Serve as a Center for Harmonizing Actions: To be a forum where nations can coordinate their efforts to achieve these common goals.
ABOUT THE UNITED NATIONS: Peace, Dignity and Equality on a Healthy Planet. One Place Where The World’s Nations Can Gather Together, Discuss Common Problems And Find Solutions. The United Nations is an international organization that was founded in 1945.The organization’s membership has grown from the original 51 member states in 1945 to the current 193 member states. All member states are members of the General Assembly. States are admitted to the membership by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendations of the Security Council.
The UN has evolved over the years to keep pace with a rapidly changing world. But one thing has stayed the same: it remains the one place on Earth where all the World’s Nations can gather together, discuss common problems, and find solutions that benefit all of humanity. The United Nations is part of the UN system which, in addition to the UN itself, comprises many programs, funds and specialized agencies, each of which have their own area of work, leadership and budget. The UN coordinates its work with these separate UN system entities, all of which cooperate with the Organization to help it achieve its goals.
THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER: The Charter of the United Nations is the founding document of the Organization. It was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945. The UN can take action on a wide range of issues due to its unique international character and the powers vested in its Charter, which is considered an international treaty. As such, the UN Charter is an instrument of international law, and the UN Member States are bound by it.
The UN Charter codifies the major principles of international relations from sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations. Since the founding of the UN in 1945, the mission and work of the organization have been guided by the purposes and principles contained in its Founding Charter; and this Founding Charter has been amended three times in 1963, 1965, and 1973 respectively.
THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY: The United Nations General Assembly is one the six principal organs of the United Nations, (UN), serving as its main deliberate policymaking and representative organ. Currently in its 80th session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter lV of the United Nations Charter.
The Group of African States (54)
The Group of Asia-Pacific States (55) The Group of Eastern European States (23)
The Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (33)
The Group of Western European and Other States (28)
The UNGA Is responsible for the UN budget, appointing the non-permanent members to the Security Council, appointing the Secretary General of the United Nations, receiving reports from other organs 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 where all member states have equal representation.
The General Assembly meets under its president or the UN Secretary General in annual sessions at the General Assembly Building, within the UN headquarters in New York City. The primary phase of these meetings generally runs from September through part of January until all issues are addressed, which is often before the next session starts. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, with representatives of the 51 founding members in attendance.
Most questions are decided in the General Assembly by a simple majority. Each member country has one vote. Voting on certain important questions—namely, recommendations on peace and security; budgeting concerns; and the election, admission, suspension, or expulsion of any member—is by a two-thirds majority of those members present. Apart from the approval of budgetary matters, including the adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security under the Security Council’s consideration.
During the 1908s, the Assembly became a forum for “North-South dialogue’ between industrialized nations and developing countries on a range of international issues. These issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing make-up of the UN membership. In 1945, the UN had 51 members, which by the 21st century nearly quadrupled to 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries. Because of their numbers, developing countries are often able to determine the agenda of the Assembly (using coordinating groups like the G77), the charter of its debates, and the nature of its decisions.
For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence and the principal outlet for their foreign relations initiatives. Although the resolutions passed by the General Assembly do not have binding forces over the member nations, (apart from budgetary measures), pursuant to its Uniting for Peace resolution of November 1950, (resolution 377 (V), the Assembly may also take action if the Security Council fails to act, owing to the negative vote of a permanent member, in a case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. The Assembly can consider the matter immediately with a view to making recommendations to members for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security.
HISTORY: The first session of the UN General Assembly was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London with representatives of 51 nations in attendance. Subsequently, until moving to its new permanent home in Manhattan in 1951, the Assembly convened the former New York City Pavilion of the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Flushing, New York. On November 29, 1947, the Assembly voted to adopt the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine at this venue.
During the 1946—1951 period of the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council also conducted proceedings at the United Nations interim headquarters at Lake Success, New York. During this time in 1949, the CBS television network provided the coverage of these sessions on its United Nations in Action broadcast series which was produced by the journalist Edmund Chester.
It moved to the permanent Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City at the start of its seventh regular annual session, on 14 October 1952. In December 1988, in order to hear Yasser Arafat, the new Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader, the General Assembly organized its 43rd session in the Palace of Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland.
MEMBERSHIP: All 193 members of the United Nations are members of the General Assembly, with the addition of the Holy See and Palestine as observer states as well as the European Union (since 1974). Further, the United Nations General Assembly may grant observer status to an international entity or organization, which entitles the entity to participate in the work of the United Nations General Assembly through with limitations.
AGENDA: The Agenda for each session is planned up to seven months in advance and begins with the release of a preliminary list of items to be included in the provisional agenda 60 days before the opening of the session. After the session begins, the final agenda is adopted in a plenary meeting which allocates the work to the various main committees, who later submit report back to the General Assembly for adoption by consensus or by vote. Items in the agenda are numbered. Regular plenary sessions of the General Assembly in recent years have initially been scheduled to be held over the course of just three months; however, additional workloads have extended these sessions until just short of the next session. The routinely scheduled portions of the sessions normally commence on the “Tuesday of the third week in September, counting from the first week that contains at least one working day,” per the UN Rules of Procedures. The last two of these Regular Sessions were routinely scheduled to recess exactly three months afterward in early December but were resumed in January and extended until just before the beginning of the following sessions.
RESOLUTIONS: The General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the international community about an array of world issues. Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical manner, because the General Assembly lacks enforcement powers with respect to most issues. The General Assembly has the authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget. The General Assembly can also refer an issue to the Security Council to put in place a binding resolution.
From the First to the Thirtieth General Assembly sessions, all General Assembly resolutions were numbered consecutively, with the resolution number followed by the session in Roman numbers (for example, Resolution 1514 (XV), which was the 1514th numbered resolution adopted at the Fifteenth Regular Session (1960). Beginning in the Thirty-first Session, resolutions are numbered by individual sessions (for example Resolution 41/10 represents the 10th resolution adopted at the Forty-First Session).
BUDGET: The General Assembly also approves the budget of the United Nations and decides how much money each member state must pay to run the organization. The Charter of the United Nations gives responsibility for approving the budget to the General Assembly (Chapter IV, Article 17) and for preparing the budget to the secretary general, as “Chief Administrative Officer” under (chapter XV, Article 19). The planning, programming, budgeting, monitoring, and evaluation cycle of the United Nations has evolved over the years. Major resolutions on the process include General Assembly resolutions; 41/213 of 19 December 1986, 42/211 of December 1987, and 45/248 of 21 December 1990.
The budget covers the costs of United Nations programmes in areas such as the political affairs, international justice and law, international cooperation for development, public information, human rights, and humanitarian affairs. The main source of the funds for the regular budget is the contributions of member states. The scale of assessment is based on the capacity of countries to pay. This criteria, is determined by considering their relative shares of total gross national product, adjusted to take into account a number of factors, including their per-capital incomes. In addition o the regular budget, member states are assessed for the costs of the international tribunals and, in accordance with a modified version of the basic scale, for the costs of peacekeeping operations.
ELECTIONS: The General Assembly is entrusted in the United Nations Charter with electing members to various organs within the UN System. The procedure for these elections can be found in section 15 of the Rules of Procedure for the General Assembly. The most important elections for the General Assembly include those for the upcoming President og the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Human Rights Council, the International Court of Justice, Judges of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal, and United Nations Appeals Tribunal. Most elections are held annually with the exception of the Judges to the ICJ, which happens triennially.
The Assembly annually elects five non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms, 18 members of the Economic and Social Council for three year terms, and between 14 to 18 members of the Human Rights Council for three year terms. It also elects the leadership of the next General Assembly session, i.e. the next President of the General Assembly, the 21 vice-presidents, and the bureau of the six man committee.
Elections to the International Court of Justice take place every three years in order to ensure continuity within the court. In these elections, five Judges are elected for nine-year terms. These elections are held jointly with the Security Council, with candidates needing to receive an absolute majority of the votes in both bodies. The Assembly also in conjunction with the Security Council selects the next Secretary General of the United Nations. The main part of these elections is held in the Security Council, with the General Assembly simply appointing the candidates that receives the Council’s nomination.
REGIONAL GROUPS: (54)> Division of seats of the Economic and Social based on regional grouping:
African States (14) Asia-Pacific States (11)
Eastern European States (6) Latin American and Caribbean States (10) Western European and Other States (13)
The United Nations Regional Groups were created in order to facilitate the equitable geographical distribution of seats among the Member States in different United Nations bodies. Resolution 33/138 of the General Assembly states that “the composition of various organs of the United Nations should be constituted to ensure their representative character.”
Thus, member states of the United Nations are informally divided into five regions, with most bodies in the UN System having a specific number of seats allocated for each regional group. Additionally, the leadership of most bodies also rotates between the regional groups, such as the presidency of the General Assembly and the chairmanship of the six main committees. The regional groups work according to the consensus principle. Candidates who are endorsed by them are, as a principle, elected by the General Assembly in any subsequent elections.
SESSIONS: REGULAR SESSIONS> The General Assembly meets annually in a regular session that opens on the third Tuesday of September, and runs until the following September. Sessions are held at the United Nations Head Headquarters in New York unless changed by the General Assembly by a majority vote.
The regular session is split into two distinct periods, the main and resumed parts of the session. During the main part of the session, which runs from the opening of the session until Christmas break in December, most of work of the Assembly is done. This period is the Assembly’s most intense period of work and includes the general debate and the bulk of the work of the six Main Committees. The resumed part of the session, however, which runs from January until the beginning of the new session, includes more thematic debates, consultation processes and working group meetings.
GENERAL DEBATE: The general debate of each new session of the General Assembly is held in the week following the official opening of the session, typically the following Tuesday, and is held without interruption for nine working days. The general debate is a high-level event, typically attended by Member States Heads of State or Government, Government ministers and the United Nations delegates.
At the general debate, Member States are given the opportunity to raise attention to topics or issues that they feel are important. In addition to the general debate, there are also many other high-level thematic meetings, summits and informal events held during the general debate week.
SPECIAL SESSIONS: Special sessions, or United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS), may be convened in three different ways, at the request of Security Council or at the request of a majority of UN Member States, or by a single member, as long as a majority concurs.
Special sessions typically cover one single topic and end with adoption of one or two outcome documents, such as a political declaration, action plan or strategy to combat said topic. They are also typically high-level events with participation from heads of state and government, as well as by government ministers. There have been 32 special sessions in the history of the United Nations.
EMERGENCY SPECIAL SESSIONS: If the Security Council is unable, usually due to disagreement among the permanent members, to come to a decision on a threat to international peace and security, then emergency special sessions can be convened in order to make appropriate recommendations to member states for collective measures. This power was given to the Assembly in Resolution 377 (V) of 3 November 1950.
Emergency special sessions can be called by the Security Council if supported by at least seven members or by a majority of member states of the United Nations. If enough votes are obtained, the Assembly must meet within 24 hours, with members being notified at least twelve hours before the opening of the session. There have been 11 emergency special sessions in the history of the United Nations.
SEATING: Countries are seated alphabetically in the General Assembly according to English translations of the countries’ names. The country which occupies the front-most left position is determined annually by the Secretary General via ballot draw. The remaining countries follow alphabetically after it.
REFORM AND UNPA,( UNITED NATIONS PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY): On 21 March 2005, Secretary General Kofi Annan presented a report, In Larger Freedom, that criticized the General Assembly for focusing so much on consensus that it was passing water-down resolutions reflecting “the lowest common denominator of widely different opinions. He also criticized the Assembly for trying to address too broad an agenda, instead of focusing on “the major substantive issues of the day, such as international migration and the long debated comprehensive convention on terrorism.”
Annan recommended streamlining the General Assembly’s agenda, committee structure, and procedures, strengthening the role and authority of its president, enhancing the role of civil society; and establishing a mechanism to review the decisions of the committee, in order to minimize unfunded mandates and micromanagement of the United Nations Secretariat. Annan reminded the UN members of their responsibility to implement reforms, if they expect to realize improvement in UN effectiveness.
The reform proposals were not taken up by the United Nations World Summit in September 2005. Instead, the summit solely affirmed the central position of the General Assembly as the chief deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN, as well as the advisory role of the Assembly in the process of standard-setting and the codification of international law. The summit also called for strengthening the relationship between the General Assembly and the other principal organs to ensure better coordination on topical issues that required coordinated action by the United Nations, in accordance with their respective mandates.
A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, or United Nations People’s Assembly (UNPA), is a proposed addition to the United Nations System that could allow for direct election of UN parliament members by citizens all over the world. In the General Debate of the 65th General Assembly, Jorge Valero, representing Venezuela said, “The United Nations has exhausted its model and it is not simply a matter of proceeding with reforms, the 21st century demands deep changes that are only possible with a rebuilding of this organization.
He pointed to the futility of resolutions concerning the Cuban embargo and the Middle East conflict as reasons for the UN model having failed. Venezuela also called for the suspension of veto rights in the Security Council because it was a “remnant of the Second World War [it] is incompatible with the principles of sovereign equality of states.”
Reforms of the United Nations General Assembly include proposals to change the powers and composition of the UN General Assembly. This could include, for example, tasking the Assembly with evaluating how well member states implement UNGA resolutions, increasing the power of the Assembly vis-à-vis the United Nations Security Council, or making debates more constructive and less receptive.
The UN General Assembly approved the pact for the “Pact for the Future,” a plan to address global challenges including climate change, AI regulation, inequality, and conflicts. It calls for reforms to the Security Council, nuclear disarmament, and greater inclusion of youth and women in decision-making. UN Secretary General Guterres urged leaders to act on these commitments.
SIDE LINES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY: The annual session of the United Nations General Assembly is accompanied by independent meetings between world leaders, better known as meetings taking place at the sidelines of the Assembly meeting. The diplomatic congregation has also since evolved into a week attracting wealthy and influential individuals from around the world to New York to address various agendas, ranging from humanitarian and environmental to business and political.