Sixth Committee (Legal) — 79th session
Administration of justice at the United Nations (Agenda item 152)
The Committee authorized its Chair to send a letter to the President of the General Assembly with a request that it be brought to the attention of the Chair of the Fifth Committee and circulated as a document of the General Assembly at the 39th meeting on 22 November 2024. The Committee thus concluded its consideration of agenda item 152.
- Authority:
Documentation
- — Report of the Secretary-General on administration of justice at the United Nations
- — Report of the Secretary-General on the activities of the Office of the United Nations Ombudsman and Mediation Services
- — Report of the Internal Justice Council on administration of justice at the United Nations
Summary of work
Background (source: )
The General Assembly had this item on its agenda at its fifty-fifth to fifty-ninth and annually since its sixty-first session (resolutions , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and , and decisions 56/458 C, 58/576, 61/503 A, 63/531, 64/527, 64/553 and ).
At its sixty-second session, the Assembly established: (a) a two-tier formal system of administration of justice, comprising a first instance United Nations Dispute Tribunal and an appellate instance United Nations Appeals Tribunal; (b) the Office of Administration of Justice, comprising the Office of the Executive Director and the Office of Staff Legal Assistance, as well as the Registries for the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and the United Nations Appeals Tribunal, the Registries to be overseen by the Principal Registrar; (c) a single integrated and decentralized Office of the Ombudsman for the United Nations Secretariat, funds and programmes with branches in several duty stations and a new mediation division; (d) the Internal Justice Council; and (e) the Management Evaluation Unit in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Management (resolution ).
At its sixty-third session, the Assembly adopted the statutes of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and the United Nations Appeals Tribunal and decided that the Tribunals would be operational as of 1 July 2009 and that all persons who had access to the Office of the Ombudsman under the previous system would also have access to the new informal system (resolution ). The statutes have been amended at subsequent sessions (resolutions , , , , and ).
Consideration of the item in the Sixth Committee
At the seventy-eighth session, as set out in a letter from the Chair of the Sixth Committee (see , annex), the Sixth Committee considered the legal aspects of the reports of the Secretary-General and of the Internal Justice Council on the administration of justice at the United Nations and the report of the Secretary-General on the activities of the Office of the United Nations Ombudsman and Mediation Services. The Sixth Committee drew the attention of the Fifth Committee to a number of specific issues relating to the legal aspects of those reports.
Archived videos and summaries of plenary meetings
(15 October 2024, 10:00am – 1:00pm) | Summary
(22 November 2024, 3:00pm – 6:00pm) | Summary
