General Assembly (GA)

Contact: ga@bermun.de

The General Assembly (GA) is the main forum of the United Nations in which all 191 member states are equally represented having one vote each. According to Article 13 of the UN Charter, the GA should promote political, economic, social, and cultural cooperation of all member states through initiating studies, as well as making recommendations to other UN organs, member states and non-member states of the UN. For more information on the UN General Assembly, go to http://www.un.org/ga/60/.

At BERMUN, the GA consists of all 78 participating member states, as well as NGOs and Official Observers, each of which will have four seats. The rules of debate and the voting procedure are those of The Hague International Model United Nations, that is a modified version of Robert's Rules of Order.

The Political Committee, Disarmament Committee, Environment Committee, and Human Rights Committee are members of the GA. Only full members of the UN have voting rights, but all delegations (including NGOs and Official Observers) have full debating rights, which allows them to take the floor, as well as submit resolutions and amendments.

The Opening Ceremony of the General Assembly will take place on Wednesday and Thursday. At this point, the Ambassador of each delegation will deliver an opening speech, which is to be no more than one minute in length. The speech may be either general or specific in nature, but it must be representative of that nation's primary concerns about the state of the world.

On Saturday, the four GA committees will assemble once again in the gym to discuss one resolution submitted by each committee. All delegates are to participate in the GA whether or not their committee's resolution is being discussed. Delegates are to inform one another about the issues and resolutions in their respective committees to allow for active participation.

<-- top