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Revision as of 21:46, 3 December 2007 by Bocaccio70s (talk | contribs) (correction)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)A United Nations resolution (or UN resolution) is a formal text adopted by a United Nations (UN) body. Although any UN body can issue resolutions, in practice most resolutions are issued by the Security Council or the General Assembly.
Legal status
The legal status of UN resolutions has been a matter of intense debate:
- Most experts consider most General Assembly resolutions to be non-binding (Articles 10 and 14 of the UN Charter refer to General Assembly "recommendations"); however, some General Assembly resolutions dealing with matters internal to the United Nations, such as budgetary decisions or instructions to lower-ranking organs, are clearly binding on their addressees.
- Under Article 25 of the Charter, UN member states are bound to carry out "decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter". It has been debated what kind of Security Council resolutions are covered by this provision, in particular whether it only covered Security Council resolutions adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter ("Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression"). The International Court of Justice determined in its 1971 Namibia advisory opinion that the binding effect of Security Council decisions is not limited to resolutions adopted under this provision. These advisory opinions are essentially non-binding, but this non-binding character does not mean that opinions are without legal effect, because the legal reasoning embodied in them reflects the Court's authoritative views on important issues of international law and, in arriving at them, the Court follows essentially the same rules and procedures that govern its binding judgments delivered in contentious cases submitted to it by sovereign states. An advisory opinion derives its status and authority from the fact that it is the official pronouncement of the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
It has been proposed that a binding triad of conditions — a supermajority of the number of nations voting, whose populations and contributions in dues to the UN budget form a majority of the total — make a General Assembly resolution binding on all nations; the proposal has gone nowhere.
For more information on specific resolutions, see:
Structure of a resolution
The typical United Nations resolution is constructed as a single, very long sentence. It is composed of three sections: the name of the body issuing the resolution (be it the Security Council, the General Assembly, a subsidiary organ of the GA, or any other resolution-issuing organization), which serves as the subject of the sentence; the preambulatory clauses (also called preambulatory phrases) indicating the reasons behind the resolution as a preamble does in other documents; and the operative clauses (also called operative phrases) in which the body delineates the course of action it will take (if it is the Security Council or a UN organ making policy for within the UN) or recommends to be taken (in many Security Council resolutions and for all other bodies when acting outside the UN).
The last operative clause, at least in the Security Council, is almost always "Decides to remain seized of the matter," (sometimes changed to "actively seized"). The reasoning behind this custom is somewhat murky, but it appears to be an assurance that the body in question will consider the topic addressed in the resolution in the future if it is necessary.
The preambulatory and operative clauses almost always start with verbs, sometimes modified by adverbs then continue with whatever the body decides to put in; the first word is always either italicized or underlined. However, preambulatory clauses are unnumbered, end with commas, and sometimes do begin with adjectives; operative clauses are numbered, end with semicolons (except for the final one, which ends with a full stop/period), and never begin with adjectives.
The name of the issuing body may be moved from above the preambulatory clauses to below them; the decision to do so is mostly stylistic, and the resolution still comprises a coherent sentence.
Types
United Nations resolutions can be both substantive resolutions and procedural resolutions.
In additions, resolutions can be classified upon from which organ they originate, e.g.:
References
- Template:PDFlink, Advisory Opinion of 21 June 1971 at paras. 87-116, especially 113: "It has been contended that Article 25 of the Charter applies only to enforcement measures adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter. It is not possible to find in the Charter any support for this view. Article 25 is not confined to decisions in regard to enforcement action but applies to "the decisions of the Security Council" adopted in accordance with the Charter. Moreover, that Article is placed, not in Chapter VII, but immediately after Article 24 in that part of the Charter which deals with the functions and powers of the Security Council. If Article 25 had reference solely to decisions of the Security Council concerning enforcement action under Articles 41 and 42 of the Charter, that is to say, if it were only such decisions which had binding effect, then Article 25 would be superfluous, since this effect is secured by Articles 48 and 49 of the Charter."
- The UN General Assembly Requests a World Court Advisory Opinion On Israel's Separation Barrier, Pieter H.F. Bekker, ASIL (American Society of International Law) Insights, December 2003.
