ABSTRACT
In our view, the Assembly does not deal effectively with problems of international peace and security: indeed, in this area, the Security Council has assumed a pre-eminent and, sometimes, exclusive role which we feel was not the initial intention of the framers of the Charter. Therefore, the pre-eminent – though not exclusive – role in the area of peace and security should be given to the Assembly. However, this transfer would also need to be accompanied by an enhancement, on the one hand, of the Assembly’s credibility (by organizing – decennially or so – high-level summits of this organ) and, on the other, of the legitimacy of the whole United Nations (by the institution of an Assembly that meets on a continuous basis). Those alterations would necessarily have to be accompanied by some fundamental changes in the relation of the Assembly with the two other main United Nations ‘principal organs’, that is, the Secretariat and the Security Council. In particular, a ‘new understanding’ or a new ‘division of labour’ would have to be arranged between the General Assembly, the Secretary-General and the Security Council. This new arrangement would have two main features: first, a better definition and understanding of these organs’ respective role in order to avoid any overlapping or competition among them; and secondly, an improved coordination between these institutions, the Secretary-General playing a major role in this regard.
