The Work of the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in 2011

Abstract

The Legal Committee of the General Assembly, commonly known as the ‘Sixth Committee’, is one of the Main Committees of the United Nations General Assembly. As its name suggests, it is the subsidiary body of the Assembly in which legal matters are to be considered. In practice, legal questions (including those relating to international law) are, on occasion, also raised in other Main Committees in relation to, for example, disarmament (First Committee) and the protection of human rights (Third Committee). Nonetheless, those issues are raised in particular contexts and linked to the specific competences of those Committees. The Sixth Committee enjoys a general competence over legal matters, without restriction to any specific topic or thematic area. Nor is it, necessarily, limited to considering matters of public international law (although the majority of its work tends to be in that area): it also considers legal questions pertaining more to private international law (such as those relating to trade and international commercial law), as well as the internal rules of organisation, for example, pertaining to the administration of justice within the United Nations. It has even considered some topics which arguably relate to the internal law of the members states of the United Nations.