United Nations
General Assembly

The United Nations General Assembly is the principal deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the United Nations. It comprises all 193 UN Member States, each of which has one vote regardless of size, population, or economic power. The General Assembly meets in regular annual sessions beginning in September, and may convene emergency special sessions when circumstances require. Its resolutions are adopted by simple majority on ordinary questions, and by a two-thirds majority on important questions — including peace and security, admission of new members, and budgetary matters.

Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding on Member States. They represent the collective views of the international community, carry significant political and moral weight, and can — over time — contribute to the formation of customary international law. The Assembly's authority derives from its universal membership and the legitimacy that flows from near-universal representation, rather than from enforcement powers. This makes it a uniquely important venue for establishing international norms, launching investigative or monitoring bodies, and providing a platform for issues that the Security Council cannot address due to the veto.

At Delhi MUN 2026, delegates will simulate a plenary session of the General Assembly. The committee will operate under UNA-USA rules of procedure applicable to GA plenary sessions. With 193 member delegations, the GA simulation places a premium on coalition-building, bloc diplomacy, and the crafting of language broad enough to command the two-thirds support required for resolutions on important questions. Delegates should be prepared to negotiate across the deep political divides between Western states, the Group of 77, the African Union bloc, and others — while ensuring that the committee's output reflects genuine consensus-building rather than lowest-common-denominator compromise that obscures the substantive issues.

International humanitarian law has two primary sources: treaty law and customary international law. The treaty framework is anchored by the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which have been ratified by all 196 states recognised under international law — making them the most universally ratified treaties in history. The Conventions establish comprehensive protections for wounded and sick combatants on land (Convention I), at sea (Convention II), prisoners of war (Convention III), and civilians (Convention IV). Common Article 1 of all four Conventions establishes the obligation to "respect and ensure respect" for the Conventions in all circumstances — an obligation the International Court of Justice has interpreted as extending to the conduct of other parties, not merely one's own forces. Common Article 3, applicable to non-international armed conflicts, establishes baseline minimum protections: prohibition of violence to life and person (including murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture), prohibition of hostage-taking, prohibition of humiliating and degrading treatment, and the requirement to provide care for the wounded and sick without discrimination.

The 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions substantially developed the law of non-international armed conflict (Additional Protocol II) and codified and extended the rules applicable to international armed conflicts (Additional Protocol I). Additional Protocol I establishes the fundamental principles governing the conduct of hostilities: distinction (parties must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives), proportionality (attacks must not cause civilian casualties excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage), and precaution (parties must take all feasible precautions to minimise civilian harm). These principles are now regarded as customary international law applicable to all parties in all armed conflicts, regardless of whether they have ratified the Protocols.

War crimes are defined in international law as serious violations of IHL that give rise to individual criminal responsibility. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, in Article 8, provides the most comprehensive and authoritative enumeration of war crimes in positive international law. Article 8 identifies grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions (including wilful killing, torture, taking hostages, and extensive destruction of civilian property not justified by military necessity), other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, and — in a significant development — a list of serious violations applicable in non-international armed conflict, including attacks on civilians, pillaging, committing rape and other forms of sexual violence, and conscripting child soldiers.

The doctrine of command responsibility — codified in Article 28 of the Rome Statute — establishes that military commanders and civilian superiors may be held criminally responsible for war crimes committed by forces under their effective control if they knew or should have known that the crimes were being committed or were about to be committed, and if they failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent, repress, or report them. Command responsibility has been applied in international tribunals including the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and by the ICC itself. It is one of the most powerful tools for reaching senior leaders who direct or condone atrocities without personally committing them.

Recognising the inadequacy of ad hoc international tribunals and the limitations of ICC jurisdiction, the UN system has developed a new category of institution: investigative and evidence-preservation mechanisms that collect and analyse evidence to support future prosecutions, without themselves exercising prosecutorial authority. These mechanisms represent an important innovation in international accountability architecture, designed to bridge the gap between the commission of crimes and eventual accountability in whatever forum proves available.

The International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011 — universally abbreviated as the IIIM — was established by the General Assembly in December 2016 through Resolution A/RES/71/248. The IIIM was the first accountability mechanism of its kind: established by the General Assembly (rather than the Security Council, which had been blocked by veto from acting on Syria), it operates as an independent body mandated to collect, consolidate, preserve, and analyse evidence of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Syria, and to prepare files to facilitate and expedite fair and independent criminal proceedings in national, regional, or international courts. The IIIM does not conduct its own prosecutions. It builds case files and makes them available to prosecutors — in ICC proceedings if a referral occurs, in domestic proceedings in third countries exercising universal jurisdiction (as several European courts have done), or in any future Syria-specific tribunal. The IIIM's establishment through General Assembly resolution was itself a significant precedent: it demonstrated that the Assembly could create a quasi-judicial accountability body without Security Council authorisation, and that such a body could have legal effect.

Following the publication of a UN Fact-Finding Mission report in 2018 finding "serious indications" of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, the Human Rights Council established the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) through Resolution A/HRC/RES/39/2 in September 2018. The IIMM's mandate closely parallels the IIIM's: to collect, consolidate, preserve, and analyse evidence of the most serious crimes and violations of international law in Myanmar since 2011, and to prepare case files for use in criminal proceedings. Myanmar has not cooperated with the IIMM, and the mechanism has relied on evidence collected by civil society organisations, survivor testimonies, satellite imagery, and open-source intelligence. Several proceedings before the ICJ and in domestic courts have drawn on evidence gathered in the IIMM process.

Beyond these dedicated mechanisms, the UN Human Rights Council maintains a system of Commissions of Inquiry and Fact-Finding Missions (COIs/FFMs) that have been deployed in numerous conflict situations, including Yemen, South Sudan, Libya, Belarus, Ethiopia/Tigray, and Ukraine/Russia. These bodies investigate patterns of violations, attribute responsibility, and make recommendations. Their reports do not produce arrest warrants or convictions, but they create authoritative public records that can later support prosecutions, inform sanctions decisions, and establish historical accountability.

The General Assembly's accountability toolkit is substantial but not sufficient. Several structural limitations constrain its effectiveness and must inform the committee's deliberations.

Enforcement gap. The Assembly can investigate, record, attribute, condemn, and call for prosecution — but it cannot compel arrests, extraditions, or convictions. Criminal accountability ultimately depends on enforcement by states or by an international court with the cooperation of states willing to transfer suspects. When perpetrators remain in power or are protected by powerful allies, the Assembly's condemnatory authority is real but limited in its immediate practical effect. Delegates must grapple honestly with this gap: the question is not whether investigations and condemnations are worthless, but how to construct accountability architectures that maximise their practical impact over time.

Selective application and political legitimacy. The Assembly's accountability resolutions are frequently criticised for selective application: Western-backed conflicts receive less scrutiny than those involving adversary states; powerful states protect allies from condemnatory resolutions; and the Global South often resists mechanisms seen as tools of Western geopolitical pressure. This selectivity is not merely a rhetorical talking point — it is a genuine threat to the normative legitimacy of IHL enforcement. A system that holds some perpetrators accountable while providing de facto immunity to others is not a universal legal order; it is an arrangement that reflects power rather than law. The committee must consider how to design accountability mechanisms with sufficient independence, impartiality, and consistency to command universal respect.

State consent and sovereignty. Investigative mechanisms, accountability proceedings, and even advisory opinions face persistent resistance from states invoking sovereign equality and non-interference in internal affairs. The IIIM has operated without Syrian cooperation; the IIMM has operated without Myanmar cooperation; the ICJ advisory opinion process can proceed without the consent of the relevant state. But investigations conducted without state cooperation face serious evidentiary challenges, and their findings — however well-documented — may be challenged on due process grounds in any subsequent prosecution. The committee should consider both how to maximise the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms in the absence of state cooperation and what incentives or pressures might encourage cooperation.

Path toward prosecutorial reform. Several reform proposals have been advanced that could strengthen the accountability architecture: creating a permanent General Assembly-linked tribunal for situations blocked at the Security Council; amending the Rome Statute to allow referral by the General Assembly rather than solely the Security Council; establishing universal jurisdiction frameworks that all states parties to the Geneva Conventions would be required to implement; and providing sustained funding and political backing to existing investigative mechanisms. Delegates should arrive with clear positions on which of these reforms are desirable, feasible, and likely to command the support needed for adoption and implementation.