A host of resolutions passed annually by the General Assembly are not legally binding documents by any measure.
One needs only to read Article 10 of the UN Charter:
“The General Assembly may discuss any
questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or
relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the
present Charter, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations to
the Members of the United Nations or to the Security Council or to both
on any such questions or matters” [italics by author].
Professor, Judge Schwebel, the former president of the International Court of Justice, has written that:
“The
General Assembly of the United Nations can only, in principle, issue
‘recommendations’ which are not of a binding character, according to
Article 10 of the Charter of the United Nations.”[1]
Schwebel
also cites the (1950) opinion of Judge, Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, a
former member judge of the International Court of Justice, who declared
that:
“The
General Assembly has no legal power to legislate or bind its members by
way of recommendation.” Yet, another former ICJ judge, Sir Gerald
Fitzmaurice, has been just as resolute in rejecting what he labeled the
“illusion” that a General Assembly resolution can have “legislative
effect.”[2]
Academics and renowned international law experts also agree. Professor Stone illuminates this subject by pointing out:
“In his book The Normative Role of the General Assembly of the United Nations and the Declaration of Principles of Friendly Relations,
Professor Gaetano Arangio-Ruiz [3] is led to conclude that the General
Assembly lacks legal authority either to enact or to ‘declare’ or
‘determine’ or ‘interpret’ international law so as legally to bind
states by such acts, whether these states be members of the United
Nations or not, and whether these states voted for or against or
abstained from the relevant vote or did not take part in it.” [4,5]
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