Acting on the recommendations of its Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) and Sixth Committee (Legal), the General Assembly today adopted a total of 50 resolutions and 13 decisions on items ranging from decolonization and the question of Palestine to the work of the International Legal Commission and restrictions on United Nations staff members from certain missions.
Sixth Committee
Concluding its seventy-eighth session today, the Sixth Committee (Legal) approved without a vote 16 draft resolutions, one draft decision and a draft letter, as speakers, welcoming the opening of the Trusteeship’s curtains, also expressed diverging views on the Committee’s tradition of consensus.
Approving one request for observer status and deferring nine others today, the Sixth Committee (Legal) also heard the oral reports of two Working Groups and took up its agenda item on revitalizing the General Assembly’s work, as several delegates suggested alternative working methods to rejuvenate stagnated discussions.
As the Sixth Committee (Legal) took up the report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country today, many speakers welcomed progress of the host country on issuing and renewing entry visas to representatives of certain States, while others pointed to unresolved issues that hinder the exercise of functions of representatives in connection with the United Nations.
As the Sixth Committee (Legal) today took up the topic expulsion of aliens, speakers debated the appropriate outcome of the International Law Commission’s draft articles, with many pointing to a required balance between State’s sovereign right to expel a person and protection of that person’s human rights, including the principle of non-refoulement.
The Sixth Committee (Legal) continued its discussion of the third cluster of topics from the International Law Commission’s annual report today, as delegates debated the weight that should be accorded to the decisions of international courts and tribunals in the context of the body’s work on “Subsidiary means for the determination of rules of international law”.
As the Sixth Committee (Legal) concluded its review of the second cluster of topics from the International Law Commission’s annual report, many speakers underscored the need for developing clear definitions of concepts and terms in both the settlement of disputes to which international organizations are parties and the prevention and repression of piracy and armed robbery at sea.
As the Sixth Committee (Legal) concluded its review of the first cluster of topics from the International Law Commission’s annual report, many speakers highlighted the need for an international framework that protects States from being threatened by sea-level rise, especially in light of how climate change was not on the horizon when the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was put into force.
The Sixth Committee (Legal) welcomed the outgoing President of the International Court of Justice today according to its annual tradition, who reflected on the future of the Court where she has served for over 13 years.
As the Sixth Committee (Legal) continue reviewing the first cluster of the International Law Commission’s annual report, many speakers addressed the juridical nature of general principles of law and its distinction within the international legal system and rules of customary law.