United Nations Research

According to the United Nation's website "The General Assembly (GA) is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority. Decisions on other questions are by simple majority."

The functions and powers of the United Nations General Assembly are found in Chapter IV of the UN Charter.

Due to the great number of questions that the General Assembly is asked to consider during a particular session, work of the body is allocated among six main committees. They are:

First Committee (Disarmament and International Security Committee) is concerned with disarmament and related international security questions.

Second Committee (Economic and Financial Committee) is concerned with economic questions.

Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee) deals with social and humanitarian issues.

Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization Committee) deals with a variety of political subjects not dealt with by the First Committee, as well as with decolonization.

Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary Committee) deals with the administration and budget of the United Nations.

Sixth Committee (Legal Committee) deals with international legal matters.

Other committees, such as the Credentials Committee examine credentials of the representatives of the members states while the General Committee meets periodically throughout each session to review the progress of the General Assembly and its committees and to make recommendations for furthering such progress.  A list of other subsidiary organs of the General Assembly may be found here.

United Nations General Assembly documents are designated with the A symbol (e.g., A/63/12 (twelve document of the 63rd session of the General Assembly))

General Assembly Official Records (GAOR)  consist of meeting records and supplements, including the resolutions and decisions of the Assembly. Reports and other selected documents are issued as annexes or supplements to the official records.

The official compilation of General Assembly resolutions appears as the last numbered supplement (usually in 2 volumes) which is issued yearly at the end of a session.  From the 42nd session (1987-1988) onwards, Supplement No. 49 has been designated to contain the resolutions and decisions of a given regular session.

The GAOR supplements do not provide voting record information.  The press release version remains the easiest to use for such information, although voting records are also itemized in the Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly as well as being available on UN Digital Library. One can locate the full text of UN press releases from 1995, at the UN Events and News website.