Sixth Committee (Legal) — 64th session
Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly (agenda item 118)
- Authority : decision 63/529
Summary of work
Background
This item, which was included in the agenda of the forty-sixth session of the General Assembly, in 1991, had originally been proposed for inclusion in the draft agenda of that session by the President of the Assembly at its forty-fifth session (see decision 45/461).
The General Assembly considered the question at its forty-sixth to forty-eighth, fifty-second and fifty-third sessions (resolutions 46/77, 47/233 and 48/264 and decisions 52/479 and 53/491).
At its fifty-fourth session, the General Assembly decided to defer consideration of the item and to include it in the draft agenda of its subsequent session (decision 54/491).
The General Assembly continued its consideration of the item from its fifty-fifth to sixty-second sessions (resolutions 55/285, 56/509, 57/301, 58/126, 58/316, 61/292 and 62/276.
At its resumed fifty-eighth session, in July 2004, the General Assembly adopted a number of measures, inter alia, to reorganize the agenda of the Assembly; and decided to review the provisions of the reorganized agenda at its sixty-first session with a view to making further improvements (resolution 58/316).
At its sixty-third session, the General Assembly adopted the proposed programme of work and timetable of the First Committee for 2009 (decision 63/521), the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) (decision 63/527), the draft programmes of work of the Second Committee (decision 63/545) and the Third Committee (decision 63/537) and the provisional programme of work of the Sixth Committee (decision 63/529) for the sixty-fourth session.
At its resumed sixty-third session, in September 2009, the General Assembly decided to establish, at its sixty-fourth session, an Ad Hoc Working Group on the revitalization of the General Assembly, open to all Member States, to identify further ways to enhance the role, authority, effectiveness and efficiency of the Assembly, inter alia, by building on previous resolutions; and to submit a report thereon to the Assembly at its sixty-fourth session (resolution 63/309).
Consideration at the sixty-fourth session
At its 2nd plenary meeting on 18 September 2009, the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the General Committee, decided to allocate the item to all the Main Committees for the sole purpose of considering and taking action on their respective tentative programmes of work for the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly.
The Committee considered the item at its 25th meeting, on 12 November 2009 (A/C.6/64/SR.25).
Action taken by the Sixth Committee
At the 25th meeting, on 12 November 2009, the Chair introduced the draft decision on the provisional programme of work for the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly as proposed by the Bureau and contained in document A/C.6/64/L.6 and orally revised it by adding the item entitled “United Nations Programme of Assistance in the Teaching, Study, Dissemination and Wider Appreciation of International Law” to the provisional programme of work for 20 October 2010. Statements were made by the representatives of Mexico (on behalf of the Rio Group), Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), the United Arab Emirates and the Syrian Arab Republic (see A/C.6/64/SR.25).
At the same meeting, the Committee adopted the draft decision on the provisional programme of work for the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly (A/C.6/64/L.16). Under this draft decision, the General Assembly noted the decision of the Sixth Committee to adopt the provisional programme of work for the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly, as proposed by the Bureau.
Subsequent action taken by the General Assembly
- Report of the Sixth Committee: A/64/461
- GA decision: 64/525 [for the text of the decision, see the Sixth Committee's report to the General Assembly]
This agenda item was subsequently considered at the sixty-fifth session (2010)
