In 1945, the UN had 51 members, which by the 21st century nearly quadrupled to 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing.
1946 UN Democracy: hyper linked transcripts of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council UN General Assembly – Documentation Research Guide Council on Foreign Relations: The Role of the UN General Assembly United Nations organs Organizations established in 1945 1945 establishments in New York (state)
The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London and included representatives of the 51 founding nations. Voting in the General Assembly on certain important questions—namely recommendations on peace and security; budgetary concerns; and the election, admission, suspension or expulsion of members—is by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting.
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 and included representatives of 51 nations.
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.
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.
Until the late 1970s, the First Committee was the Political and Security Committee (POLISEC) and there was also a sufficient number of additional "political" matters that an additional, unnumbered main committee, called the Special Political Committee, also sat.
The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security under the Security Council consideration. During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for "North-South dialogue" between industrialized nations and developing countries on a range of international issues.
In December 1988, in order to hear Yasser Arafat, the General Assembly organized its 29th 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 Holy See and Palestine as observer states.
With the decreasing number of such matters to be addressed as the trust territories attained independence and the decolonization movement progressed, the functions of the Special Political Committee were merged into the Fourth Committee during the 1990s. Each main committee consists of all the members of the General Assembly.
The remaining countries follow alphabetically after it. == Reform and UNPA == 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 watered-down resolutions reflecting "the lowest common denominator of widely different opinions".
Annan reminded UN members of their responsibility to implement reforms, if they expect to realize improvements in UN effectiveness. The reform proposals were not taken up by the United Nations World Summit in September 2005.
All text is taken from Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License .
Page generated on 2021-08-05