A new digital platform developed by United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR) provides Member States and policymakers with an interactive resource on UN General Assembly powers on peace and security matters – bringing together decades of practice, precedents and potential courses of action in an accessible and searchable format.
The platform builds on 2024’s Assembly for Peace: A Digital Handbook on the UN General Assembly’s Past Practice on Peace and Security, developed and produced by UNU-CPR for the President of the General Assembly at its 78th session, in response to General Assembly resolution 77/335. It further responds to the Assembly’s encouragement in resolution 79/327 for annual updates and wider dissemination of the Handbook.
The new platform converts the original PDF Handbook into a fully interactive resource while incorporating updates from recent General Assembly sessions and including additional case studies and links to further research, learning tools and summary materials. It provides a new platform for preserving and expanding institutional knowledge of General Assembly practice.
A Practical Tool for Policymakers
Although the UN Charter vests primary responsibility for peace and security with the Security Council, it also gives the General Assembly broad powers to consider peace and security matters and make recommendations to Member States and the Security Council. Drawing on these powers, the Assembly has engaged in a wide range of actions – from mandating mediators and peace operations to recommending responses to uses of force and sanctions and creating or supporting accountability mechanisms.
Yet much of this practice remains relatively unknown or difficult to navigate. Assembly for Peace brings it together around practical questions: What powers does the General Assembly have? How have they been used before? What types of tools does the General Assembly have to respond to conflict or other peace and security issues? And how has the Assembly’s role interacted with that of the Security Council?
The platform offers:
- A concise summary of the UN Charter basis for General Assembly engagement on peace and security.
- Summaries of multiple areas of General Assembly practice, including on peace operations, accountability measures, mediation and good offices support, and other responses to use of force.
- Over 65 cases of practice illustrating how these powers were used in practice.
- Over a dozen summary charts including those covering all Veto Initiative debates, and summarizing key examples from other key areas of practice.
- Consideration of the respective roles and complementarity between the General Assembly and the Security Council.
The Office of the President of the General Assembly at the 80th session responded to the Assembly’s encouragement of wider dissemination and of updating of the Handbook in resolution 79/327 by supporting the digital conversion through providing feedback on the updates by UNU-CPR related to the 79th and 80th sessions.
“We should draw confidence in our work in the General Assembly that Member States have not hesitated in the past to use the wide range of tools and precedents to respond to threats to international peace and security – knowing that upholding the principles of the United Nations Charter is their own life insurance,” says Annalena Baerbock, President of the General Assembly, 80th session.
Reflecting on the platform’s emphasis on learning from past practice, Erica Gaston, Project Lead for Assembly for Peace, and Head of UNU-CPR’s Conflict Prevention and Sustaining Peace Research Programme, highlighted the practical value of making the Assembly’s record more accessible to Member States: “The General Assembly has an essential role to play in maintaining international peace and security. At a time of growing geopolitical division, understanding how the Assembly has responded to crises in the past can help Member States make fuller use of its role in addressing the peace and security challenges of today.”
Explore Assembly for Peace: assemblyforpeace.unu.edu
