General Assembly 6
The United Nations General Assembly Sixth committee is the primary forum for the consideration of legal questions in the General Assembly. The sixth committee has universal membership. Non member states with observer status in the General Assembly such as Switzerland before its ascension to the UN may attend and participate in the discussions.
Every member of the committee is obligated to promote the improvement of Public International Law. The General Assembly assigns to the sixth committee a list of agenda items to be discussed. Those items usually include the annual reports of The International Law Commission, The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, the Ad Hoc committee established in 1966 on terrorism, the special committee on the charter of the United Nations and on the strengthening of the role of the organization and the host country committee, as well as the item measures to eliminate international terrorism. Subsequent practice has interpreted this provision as a broad authorization to elaborate new treaties on the widest range of issues, to adopt them, and to recommend them to states for their subsequent signature, ratification and accession. While international law-making negotiations take place in a variety of specialized bodies of the United Nations, depending on their actual subject matter, those negotiations related to General International Law are usually held at the sixth committee.
The sixth committee follows a mixed decision making rule, where consensus is preferred but a vote is still possible. That is, that while the committee may take its decisions by voting, most resolutions are adopted though without a form of vote, by acclamation, unanimity of the consensus.
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