The General Assembly meets under its president
or Secretary-General in regular yearly sessions the main part of which lasts
from September to December and resumed part from January until all issues are
addressed (which often is just before the next session's start). It can also
reconvene for special and emergency special sessions. Its composition,
functions, powers, voting, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of
the United Nations Charter.
Delegates of fifty nations met at
San Francisco between April 25 and June 26, 1945. Working on the Dumbarton Oaks
proposals, the Yalta Agreement, and amendments proposed by various Governments,
the Conference agreed upon the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of
the New International Court of Justice. The Charter was passed unanimously and
signed by all the representatives. It came into force on October 24, 1945, when
China, France, the USSR, the United Kingdom, and the United States and a
majority of the other signatories had filed their instruments of ratification.
The first session of the General
Assembly was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Westminster
Central Hall in London and included representatives of 51 nations.
Voting in the General Assembly on
important questions – recommendations on peace and security; election of
members to organs; admission, suspension, and expulsion of members; budgetary
matters – is by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. Other
questions are decided by majority vote. Each member country has one vote. Apart
from approval of budgetary matters, including 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 Security Council consideration. The one state,
one vote power structure theoretically allows states comprising just
eighteen percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a two-thirds
vote.
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