GENERAL ASSEMBLY

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

• May resolve non-compulsory recommendations to states or suggestions to the Security Council (UNSC);

• Decides on the admission of new members, following proposal by the UNSC;

• Adopts the budget;

• Elects the non-permanent members of the UNSC; all members of the Economic and Social Council; the UN Secretary-General (following their proposal by the UNSC); and the fifteen judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Each country has one vote.

• The General Assembly is the primary deliberative assembly of the UN. Composed of all UN member states, the assembly gathers at annual sessions at the General Assembly Hall, but emergency sessions can be summoned. 

• The assembly is led by a president, elected by the member states on a rotating regional basis, and 21 vice-presidents. The first session convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London and comprised representatives of 51 nations.

• When the General Assembly decides on seminal questions such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, a two-thirds majority of those present and voting is required.

• All other questions are decided by a majority vote. Each member has one vote. Apart from the approval of budgetary matters, 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 that are under consideration by the Security Council.

• Draft resolutions can be forwarded to the General Assembly by its six main committees:
  1)First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)
  2)Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
  3)Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural)
  4)Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization)
  5)Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)
  6)Sixth Committee (Legal)

• As well as by the following two committees:
  1)General Committee – a supervisory committee consisting of the assembly's president, vice-presidents, and         committee heads
  2)Credentials Committee – responsible for determining the credentials of each member nation's UN representatives