| | | U of T Law Students | | | ||
|
||
|
|
||
Contents |
United Nations - Principal Organs The main deliberative body of the United Nations, the Assembly holds its regular sessions from mid-September to mid-December. The Assembly has the right to discuss and make recommendations on all matters within the scope of the UN Charter - the Organization's founding document. It has no power to compel action by any Government, but its recommendations carry the weight of world opinion. The Assembly also sets policies and determines programmes for the UN Secretariat, directs activities for development, and approves the UN budget, including peacekeeping operations. Because of the great number of questions which the Assembly is called upon to consider (166 separate agenda items at the 51st (1996/1997) session of the Assembly, for example), the Assembly allocates most questions to its six Main Committees. All questions are voted on in plenary meetings, usually towards the end of the regular session, after the committees have completed their consideration and submitted draft resolutions to the plenary Assembly. Each of the committees maintains a website from which you may access the Daily Journal (dating from 01/01/96), the Committees Current Agenda, and a list of documents currently under consideration by the Committees. The six Main Committees are:
Resolutions of the General Assembly Accessed through the General Assembly's home page, the full-text of resolutions from the current session are presented in numerical sequence according to the order in which they were adopted. Resolutions relating to previous Assembly sessions (beginning with the 32nd, 1977) can be accessed from the current session's home page. To search for Resolutions on a particular subject you may conduct a UN Website Search . Selected Subsidiary Bodies of the General AssemblyInternational Law CommissionEstablished to promote the progressive development and codification of international law, the Commission prepares draft articles on international law topics which are considered by the General Assembly and its Sixth Committee. Ultimately, the General Assembly may convene an international conference which incorporates the draft articles into a convention to which States may become parties. The website provides the Commission's annual reports beginning with the Commission's 48th session (1996), and lists all reports by document symbol, back to its first session in 1949. Also included is a list of its conventions and other texts, some of which are available in full-text, and an analytical guide to the Commissions work, which outlines the Commission's activities in a given subject area and provides citations to relevant UN documents. The site also includes a list of sessional documents (beginning with the 50th session) many of which are available in full text. United Nations Commission on International Trade LawThe United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) was established in 1966 with the general mandate of furthering the progressive harmonization and unification of the law of international trade. The areas in which the Commission has worked or is working include the international sale of goods, the international transport of goods, international commercial arbitration and conciliation, public procurement, construction contracts, international payments, and electronic commerce. This site provides access to a selection of full-text sessional documents beginning with the 28th session (1995). The site also contains full-text copies of every Convention or Model Law that has resulted from the work of UNICTRAL, a bibliography of writings related to the work of the Commission (articles are referenced to the areas of the Commission's work that are noted above), and a database (CLOUT) of court decisions and arbitral awards relating to Conventions and Model Laws that have emanated from the work of the Commission.
The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security. Comprised of 15 members (five permanent members and 10 which are elected by the General Assembly to 2 year terms), the Council investigates threats to international peace, recommends settlement plans to the parties concerned and/or proposes plans of action to contend with the particular threat to international peace. Unlike the General Assembly resolutions, member states are required under the terms of the UN Charter to carry out the decisions of the Security Council. Resolutions, this designated search mechanism allows you to search all resolutions with reference either to the documents symbol or to keywords or phrases that appear in the document (1946 to present). Aside from the adoption of ad hoc measures to deal with individual threats, the Council has developed a number of measures that have developed into institutionalized means of securing that which is proported to be the Council's ultimate objective, world peace and security. The most important of these means are the ad hoc tribunals (former Yugoslavia, Rwanda) and the peacekeeping missions. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Created by Security Council Resolution 955 (1994), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established for the purpose of prosecuting those responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and Rwandan citizens responsible for genocide and other such violations of international law committed in the territory of neighbouring States during the period between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 1994.
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia . Created by Security Council Resolution 827, the ICTY is responsible for the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. The Tribunal has authority to prosecute on the basis of grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Created and defined by Security Council Resolutions, to date there have been 49 UN peacekeeping missions, the great majority of which have been created within the last ten years. As the missions are established and defined by individual Security Council Resolutions there is little in the way of a permanent organizational structure for the UN's peacekeeping activities aside from the administration of field personnel. Although the General Assembly has established a training unit to standardize the training of Peacekeepers among member states, Governments that volunteer personnel carefully negotiate the terms of their participation including command and control arrangements and it is the individual states that retain ultimate authority over their own military forces serving under the UN flag. This site contains information on the history of the Peacekeeping operations together with details on its current role. In addition the site provides a link to a listing of field employment opportunities with the Department of Peacekeeping Services. For those interested in more detailed information on the roles played by various UN bodies in the establishment, financing and reform of Peacekeeping Operations the Dag Hammarskjöld Library has produced a detailed Research Guide on Peacekeeping Operations . Established under the terms of the Charter as the principal organ, under the authority of the General Assembly, involved in the promotion of economic and social development and the realization of universal respect for basic human rights, the Economic and Social Council serves as the central forum for the discussion of international economic and social issues and the establishment of international standards in these areas through the preparation of draft conventions for submission to the members of the General Assembly. The 54 members of the Council meet in one five-to-six-week substantive session each year as well as in one organizational session. The year-round work of the Council is carried out in its subsidiary bodies - commissions and committees - which meet at regular intervals and report back to the Council. The Council has created 25 subsidiary bodies - functional commissions, regional commissions and expert bodies - to carry out its mandated tasks. The following is a partial list of these subsidiary bodies: Commission on Human RightsEstablished in 1947 for the purpose of producing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , the Commission continued to pursue the objective of developing international legal standards in the field of human rights, drafting both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights . More recently the Commission has gone beyond standard setting and has sought to ensure compliance with international human rights norms through the establishment of Special Rapporteurs, Working Groups and Experts whose purpose it is to investigate and publicize state violations of their human rights obligations.
Established in 1966, the Commission is responsible for drafting proposals regarding social and economic policy for consideration by the Social and Economic Council. The site contains links to the Commission's documents for Sessions beginning in 1996. Commission on the Status of Women .Established in 1946, the Commission prepares recommendations and reports to the Council on promoting women's rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. Since 1995 it has also been responsible for conducting a follow-up process to the Fourth World Conference on Women, regularly reviewing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action which was adopted by the Conference.
Trusteeship Council (suspended operation, Nov. 1, 1994) Established under the Charter to exercise supervision (for the General Assembly) of the administration of territories under the Mandate System of the League of Nations and any other territories which may voluntarily have been put under the trusteeship system. The main functions of the Trusteeship Council centered around the consideration of the Administrative Powers annual reports and petitions filed by the inhabitants of the Trust Territories together with the preparation of reports for the consideration of the General Assembly.With the independence of Palau on 1 October 1994, the Trusteeship Council suspended operation, amending its rules of procedure to drop the obligation to meet annually and agreeing to meet only as occasion required. International Court of Justice The principal judicial organ of the UN, the International Court of Justice assumed the functions of the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1946. The Court settles disputes submitted to it by States that are either members of the United Nations or have become parties to the Court's Statute. It also delivers advisory opinions on questions submitted to it by recognized international organizations . The jurisdiction of the Court in any contentious case is dependant on 1) the State Party's having accepted the Court's right to entertain the dispute (either by way of mutual agreement, 2) a jurisdictional clause in the Treaty/Convention to which the dispute is related, or 3) through the reciprocal effect of the declarations made by the parties under the Court's Statute recognizing the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court).
The Secretariat oversees the work of the UN civil service, an international staff working at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and all over the world which carries out the diverse day-to-day work of the Organization. |
 | |