A Strengthened and Revitalized General Assembly

A/RES/59/313View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 52 Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, published in 2005.

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report · 2006

Year	Symbol	Title		Mandate resolution
2006	A/61/483	Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly report of the Secretary-General		A/RES/59/313

What subjects does this mandate have?

13 subjects

Administrative Reform Conference and Meeting Services Consultations Decision-Making Documents Organizational Change Programme Planning Reporting Procedures Resources Allocation Staffing Subsidiary Bodies Voting Working Groups

What’s in this document?

29 operative paragraphs

Role and authority of the General Assembly

Stresses the need to demonstrate political will to ensure the effective implementation of the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly;

Decides, in the context of further strengthening the role and authority of the General Assembly as set out in the Charter of the United Nations:

To convene and organize major thematic debates in order to establish broad international understanding on current substantive issues of importance to Member States;

To discuss issues pertaining to the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with Articles 10, 11, 12, 14 and 35 of the Charter, where appropriate using the procedures set forth in rules 7, 8, 9 and 10 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly, which enable swift and urgent action by the Assembly, bearing in mind that the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with Article 24 of the Charter;

To consider the annual reports as well as special reports of the Security Council, in accordance with Article 15, paragraph 1, and Article 24, paragraph 3, of the Charter, through substantive and interactive debates;

To invite the Security Council to submit periodically, in accordance with Article 24 of the Charter, special subject-oriented reports to the General Assembly for its consideration on issues of current international concern;

To also invite the Security Council to update the General Assembly on a regular basis on the steps it has taken or is contemplating with respect to improving its reporting to the Assembly;

To hold interactive debates on other reports submitted to the General Assembly in accordance with Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Charter;

President of the General Assembly

Decides to strengthen the role and leadership of the President of the General Assembly by:

Authorizing the President of the General Assembly to propose interactive debates on current issues on the agenda of the Assembly, in consultation with Member States;

Augmenting the resources available to the Office of the President of the General Assembly from within existing resources, subject to consideration by the Assembly of the proposed programme budget for the biennium 2006–2007, to provide for two further additional posts at management and senior levels to be filled on an annual basis following consultations with the incoming President, beginning at the sixtieth session of the Assembly;

Making available to the President of the General Assembly adequate office and conference space with a view to enabling the President to carry out his/her functions in a manner commensurate with the dignity and stature of the Office;

Requesting the Secretary-General to ensure that the President of the General Assembly is provided with proper protocol services at Headquarters and at other United Nations duty stations;

Agenda and working methods of the plenary Assembly and the Main Committees

Decides to establish an ad hoc working group open to all Member States to identify ways to further enhance the role, authority, effectiveness and efficiency of the General Assembly, inter alia, by building on relevant Assembly resolutions and reviewing the agenda and working methods of the Assembly;

Decides also that the ad hoc working group shall submit a report with specific recommendations to the General Assembly at its sixtieth session;

Requests the Secretary-General to provide the ad hoc working group with the necessary services;

Encourages the Main Committees to implement in full the provisions contained in paragraph 3 of the annex to resolution 58/316 of 1 July 2004, building upon the results of relevant discussions in each Committee;

Encourages the bureaux of the Main Committees to enhance their cooperation and to learn from each other’s best practices;

Requests the Chairpersons of the Main Committees, at the end of their terms of office, to provide a short report on their observations and “lessons learned” to their immediate successors;

Decides that time limits on speeches in the plenary Assembly and in the Main Committees shall be applied in accordance with rules 72 and 114 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly;

Strongly urges all officers presiding over meetings of the General Assembly to start such meetings on time;

Encourages the holding of interactive debates with a view to contributing to intergovernmental decision-making;

Invites Member States that are aligned with statements already made by the chair of a group of Member States, where possible, to focus additional interventions that they make in their national capacity on points that have not already been adequately addressed in the statements of the group in question, bearing in mind the sovereign right of each Member State to express its national position;

Requests the Secretary-General to issue the rules of procedure of the General Assembly in a consolidated version in all official languages, in print and online;

Recommends consideration of the use of optical scanners as a means of expediting the counting of votes cast through secret ballots during elections, taking due account of the security requirements in this regard and the credibility, reliability and confidentiality of such means, and requests the Secretary-General to report on the modalities thereof to the General Assembly through the Committee on Conferences;

Documentation

Requests the Secretary-General to implement further the measures set out in paragraph 20 of resolution 57/300 of 20 December 2002 on the consolidation of reports and in paragraph 6 of the annex to resolution 58/316, on documentation;

Encourages Member States, when seeking additional information, to request that they be provided with the information either orally or, if in writing, in the form of information sheets, annexes, tables and the like, and encourages the wider use of this practice;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that documentation and reports are issued well in advance, in keeping with the six-week rule for the issuance of documentation simultaneously in all official languages, as set out in resolution 49/221 B of 23 December 1994 and in resolution 59/309 of 22 June 2005 on multilingualism;

Also requests the Secretary-General to submit a status report to the General Assembly at its sixtieth session on the implementation of all resolutions regarding the revitalization of its work, including resolutions 58/126 of 19 December 2003 and 58/316 and the present resolution.