What is the UN General Assembly? The UN General Assembly and International Security

After the Second World War, the main organization,on whose activities it depends, no matter how pompous it may sound, peace throughout the world is the UN. The United Nations is discussing all the major problems of the present, and the parties to the conflict are trying to reach a consensus, suggesting the use of diplomatic rather than forceful methods. Which body is most important in the whole UN? The General Assembly is the heart of this notorious organization.

What is this body?

This is the main forum for meetings. Its peculiarity is that only here all the countries of the world, having their representatives in the UN, can discuss the most acute international problems in a multilateral format. What is the responsibility of this UN component? The General Assembly plays a crucial role in the development and development of international law.

How it works?

Issues are discussed in sessions. After each of them a resolution is adopted on the results of the discussed topics. In order for the draft resolution to be approved, it is necessary that at least 50% of all delegates vote for its adoption. Several things should be considered. First, what can this UN body do? The General Assembly passes resolutions, but they do not have binding and even recommendatory power. Secondly, despite this, no delegation can veto decisions.

The Assembly was approved in 1945, when allthe world flinched, 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 in other periods, if the situation in the world really requires it.

Thus, according to the Declaration of Human Rights adoptedGeneral Assembly of the United Nations in early December 1948, the basic norms of universal norms of ethics, morality and humanism were finally fixed, which all states are obliged to observe. In particular, this document contains a sharp rejection of any torture and humiliation of universal dignity with regard to captured servicemen.

Why do we need this body in the UN?

So, the United Nations (UN),whose resolution can put an end to many negative processes in the world, in its internal Charter clearly attributes the functions and powers that the Assembly described by us have:

• Its most important function is to jointly considerthe basic principles of maintaining peace and prosperity. Its recommendations can deal with absolutely any issues, and the sphere of armaments is not an exception. Based on the outcome of the discussion, a resolution is adopted, which in some cases may still be of a recommendatory nature.
• Also members of this body can openly discussany issues that somehow relate to the stability of the world geopolitical situation. In addition, the Assembly can make recommendations, except when the issue in question is within the purview of the UN Security Council.
• Specialists of the Assembly can prepareand directly implement them, in order to subsequently give more accurate and useful recommendations. This especially concerns the development of international law, as well as guarantees of observance of universal norms in all spheres of activity of the governments of the world.
• Also this body can give detailed recommendations for all situations, the uncontrolled development of which is fraught with serious shocks and violation of the relationship between different nations.
• The UN Security Council regularly shares reports with its branch. The Assembly can discuss them, as well as show various comments that are taken by higher authorities.
• A very important task of the Assembly is to adopt the UN budget, as well as determine the amount of contributions for each country whose members are members of this organization.
• Appoint the Secretary General, as well as select temporary members to the Security Council (based on the results of the general vote).

In what order are the sessions held?

Any session is opened by the fact that representativesvarious countries are debating on the most pressing 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 get capacious and detailed answers. All meetings are carefully recorded for their subsequent analysis, on the basis of which recommendations will be made.

Why do all these projects are consideredThe United Nations (UN)? The resolution of this body, dedicated to all the most important global problems, is never accepted from scratch. All decisions of the UN can be implemented only through the results of a joint debate, on which all the most important issues are fully discussed.

Only after each country implementstheir right to vote at the general debate, the consideration of issues on the agenda, on the merits, begins. It should be noted that there can be a lot of such. Thus, at a relatively recent meeting it turned out that there were almost 170 items on the agenda! How is the discussion going on in this case?

The fact is that the Assembly itself consists of sixcommittees. Between the members of the latter, the main questions are distributed, which pass through all stages of the discussion. At a subsequent plenary meeting, the Chairman of the Assembly receives a preliminary draft resolution.

She goes through an additional discussion. In the event of approval, no less than 50% of the sitting is adopted finally. After this, the resolution of the UN General Assembly can in some cases even be submitted to the Security Council. This happens if it touched upon particularly important and topical issues that directly threaten global stability.

Which units represent the six additional committees?

Since we have already touched on this issue, it should be further deciphered. So, six committees include the following units:

• Division dealing with issues of world disarmament and security. It contains all the issues that in one way or another affect the scope of excessive use of weapons.
• Committee of economic and financial problems. It, in particular, is the problem of hunger and poverty in the countries of Central Africa.
• Department of Humanitarian and Social Sciencespoliticians. Perhaps, it is one of the most important units, since it deals with human rights issues. In addition, the recommendations of this committee are most often taken into consideration by the Security Council. This means that as a result, a resolution of the UN General Assembly that has binding interpretation can be agreed upon.
• The fourth department is politics and issues, eitherotherwise concerning decolonization. His competence is extremely wide. In addition to normal general political problems, members of this committee are engaged in financial and social assistance to those states that used to be colonies of some European powers.
• Administrative and Budget Committee. It mainly deals with the office, which includes funding issues, so that the rights of the UN General Assembly in this regard are extremely large.
• The sixth committee, he is a department of law. It is not difficult to understand that it is engaged in the development and adoption of the norms of international law. Also this department can supervise the implementation of its recommendations.

What decisions can be made here?

Each state of the Assembly hasexactly one vote. Decisions of particularly important issues directly related to stability and peace can be made only if there are at least 2/3 of the votes in favor 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 includesthe chairman, as well as 21 deputies, who are responsible both for the work of the six additional committees and 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 conducting all plenary meetings of the Assembly.

What is the role of this structure in global security?

70 UN General Assembly marked byspeech of the President of the Russian Federation V. V. Putin. In his long speech, he touched on many extremely important, but very delicate issues. In particular, the Russian president repeatedly hinted that the world’s center of “dominance”, whose main representative had spoken about “exclusivity,” had ceased to respond to UN decisions in general in recent years.

What was it said for? Anyone who is interested in the politics of the last decades, it was clear that the Russian leader was hinting at the United States. The invasion of Vietnam, Libya, the bombing of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s - all this was done either without the approval of the Security Council, or such was issued "in hindsight." It is not surprising that in recent years there have been increasing opinions that the format of the Assembly is completely outdated, and the whole organization needs to be completely “dismantled”. But is it really?

Yes, the organization has some problems, butthey have not disappeared anywhere since the time of the League of Nations. Most countries nevertheless listen to the opinion of the United Nations and implement its peacemaking initiatives. This helps to preserve the world order and prevent the transformation of minor conflicts into really big wars. So how do the UN General Assembly relate to international security?

Conclusions and review of some problems

So, for all the time of its existence (in the periodfrom 1944 to 2016.) This organization can be called the most influential in the world. Thus, the declaration of the UN General Assembly more than once was able to prevent those conflicts in which the states that initially 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:

• First, sadly, but in comingFor decades, the complete eradication of the causes of this war is impossible, since they include deep internal contradictions between all the peoples inhabiting this region.
• Secondly, this particular conflict is constantlyreveals 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 - the people are free to resolve territorial claims.

Based on this information, we can concludethat the implementation of the so-called road maps ”, that is, the plan for resolving a conflict, should take into account all the specific features of the region in which it has developed. Unfortunately, not all sessions of the UN General Assembly at all affected this painful problem.

It is also very difficult to solve this problem.the circumstance that the parties to the conflict generally do not trust the decisions of the UN at all. At times, only the influence of intermediaries in the person of the United States or the Russian Federation helps to prevent serious consequences, while the opinion of the UN itself is hardly heard by the Arabs and Israelis. How can a way out of this impasse be found?

Here the organization must manifest a knowndegree of flexibility. The proposed resolutions on the Israeli issue are a set of compromises made by countries that are indifferent to problems in this region. In such a delicate situation, as some UN experts believe, it would be advisable to listen not to the faceless majority opinion, but to the decisions of the countries directly involved in this conflict.

Rwanda disaster

Also documents of the UN General Assemblytestify that at one time the members of the organization did not attach proper significance to the events that resulted in one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last millennium, in which thousands of people died. The conflict in Rwanda was extremely complicated for the reason that it was based not only on religious, but also on deep ethnic contradictions.

And the main factor was just ethnicquestion. The difficulty was also in the fact that from the very beginning members of the Assembly could not firmly decide which side to take the nationality. Such throwings were erroneous in their essence: it was necessary to immediately stop the outbreak of conflict. When two ethnic groups are fighting within the same country, this is a common civil war, fraught with enormous casualties and forever dividing many generations of people who lived there.

In addition, for some unknown reason,completely forgotten economic factors. In particular, it has long been proven that with a more or less stable growth of the economy such conflicts are possible, but they rarely reach their peak (without external funding). But in Rwanda, for all the 1980s, the economy was rapidly degrading, constantly falling into minus. Again, in those conditions it was necessary to act urgently, but for some reason, initially no action was taken.

So we learned what the General Assembly is for in the UN.