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United Nations Government Information |
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General AssemblyThe General Assembly is the main deliberative body of the U.N. One hundred and ninety one nations are represented here and each has one vote. This body elects members of the other organs. The General Assembly can debate any issue relating to the Charter , e.g., international security, cultural issues, law, education, etc. It approves the U.N. budget and elects the Secretary-General , the chief administrative officer. There is a set procedure to conduct business in this U.N. organ ( Rules of Procedure and General Assembly: Parliamentary Documents ). 4. Verbatim Records & Speeches Other important items for the General Assembly Other Research Aids for General Assembly
AGENDAFirst, the General Committee (a kind of steering committee) sets up the agenda
COMMITTEESSome issues are debated only in plenary meetings, while others are assigned to one of six committees designated to handle these questions. (Links contain subject guides, documents and information about each committee): 1. Disarmament & International Security 3. Social, Humanitarian & Cultural 4. Special Political & Decolonization REPORT OR DRAFT RESOLUTIONUsually after these committees debated the issue, their results are presented as a report or draft back to the General Assembly.
VERBATIM RECORDSMany times exact records are kept of meetings and they are a good way to get information.
SPEECHESMembers and invited speakers (e.g. presidents and prime minsiters) give speeches at the U.N. on a variety of subjects.
RESOLUTIONSThe major document type for the General Assembly is the resolution, which describes the situation and the actions that will be taken by the U.N., for example to send peacekeepers or call on nations to do a certain act. It is the will of the organization. A Decision , on the other hand, is the will of the organization about an internal affair affecting the U.N. only, such as elections or appointments. Resolutions have a certain structure. They have a Preamble and Operative Part:
Also check out General Assembly Resolution for full history of each resolution. Search by year and resolution number. Since 1997, it lists the legislative history of the resolution (committee, agenda, draft, verbatim record). VOTESSubstantive issues, such as official U.N. policy towards a world event, are decided by a two-thirds vote of the plenary meeting of the General Assembly. Many Resolutions are not voted on if they have been approved of in committee.
SUBSIDIARY AND AD HOC BODIESThere are many subsidiary and ad hoc bodies that work on special taks and report to the General Assembly, for example UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), and UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees). In the U.N. Organizational Chart , click on the body's name to be taken to its website.
OTHER RESEARCH AIDS FOR GENERAL ASSEMBLYOfficial Documents of the U.N.: Advanced Search allows searches of all documents provided by the U.N. online. Use the Full-text search field to search for words in the text of the documents. United Nations Bibliographic Information System (UNBISNET) has bibliographic records going back to 1979, and full-text back to 1992. However, they are constantly digitizing more older records. Use "a*" in UN Doc. Symbol field to search for General Assembly Documents. AccessUN, an index of U.N. material back to 1944, allows you to search by organ. If you put in 'a' for Document Number , only Securtiy Council documents will be retrieved. So, this search below with a in Document and korea in Subjects will bring up records of documents produced by the General Assembly pertaining to Korea. (See AccessUN instructions for more search information and Document Type for more information about U.N. documents).
Press Releases are a good source of basic information about U.N. activity. Search under General Assembly in the Subject field. You can then delimit by keyword. So, following this procedure, a keyword search with the United States would bring up press releases of the General Assembly dealing with the U.S.
Documents Rearch Guide The U.N. has published online a very good and detailed research guide for the General Assembly. Yearbook of the United Nations is an annual publication of the U.N. that gives a very good summary of the events and documents produced that year at the U.N. Don't forget! You can always consult me, Tom Stieve, or send an Interlibrary Loan request for the item if it's not here. |
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When searching in UNBISnet, search under UN Doc. Symbol , which is their version of call numbers. Agendas are numbered A/session number/251(number for agenda) . So, a search for the agenda for the agenda from 1995 (session 50) would be UN Doc. Symbol A/50/251. 
