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President of General Assembly

The General Assembly is one of the UN’s six principal organs, and the “chief deliberative, policy-making and representative organ of the United Nations,” according to the Charter. It comprises all 192 member states and serves as a forum for intergovernmental discussion and negotiation on all of the international issues covered by the Charter.

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Its official four-month agenda is presided over by the President of the GA, who also oversees any remaining issues to be dealt with in the remainder of the session. The powers of the President are set out in the Rules of Procedure of the GA (Rules 35-37). 

Background
The President does not vote on GA decisions but has control over all other aspects of the discussions including time limitations for speakers, closure of the list of speakers, suspension and adjournment of debate, and ruling on points of order. In addition to these formal duties, the President also has an informal facilitative role to play by consulting bilaterally with delegations to assess differences in position, propose solutions, and build consensus for proposals.

Selection Process
The selection of the President of the GA follows an unwritten system of regional rotation. Each year one of the regional groups nominates an individual, who is then elected by the entire GA membership. The pattern of regional rotation since 1963 has been:

  • Latin American and Caribbean States
  • African States
  • Western European and Other States
  • Asian States
  • Eastern Europe

Traditionally, a single nominee is selected by the regional grouping and submitted unopposed to the GA for election, thus precluding a competitive electoral process. (The most recent exception occurred in 1991, when the Asian Group nominated three candidates.)

The election is governed by the GA’s Rules of Procedure (Rule 30, as amended by Assembly Resolution 56/509 of July 8, 2002 and Resolution 58/126 of December 19, 2003). It is an election by a simple majority of Member States and takes place approximately three months ahead of the start of the next Session over which the candidate will preside.

This timing, which allows for informal overlap between the outgoing and incoming Presidents, is a relatively recent development (following GA Resolutions of 2002 and 2003) to contribute to the ongoing efforts to “revitalize” the work of the Assembly.

The term of office is one year, beginning at the opening of the Session and running until the end of the Session.

No formal criteria for the President exist in the Charter or the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure.

As a matter of practice (but not formal rule), the President may not be a national of any of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council.

Compensation for the President of the General Assembly is determined by the home Member State, which pays the President a salary. This salary is in addition to the privileges granted to all persons acting in the service of the UN or its Member States. [1]

Recent Developments
The President of the 65th Session of the General Assembly is currently Mr. Joseph Deiss of Switzerland. He was nominated by the Group of Western European and Other States (WEOG), whose turn it was to field candidates for the presidency. Another WEOG member, Belgium, also had put forward a candidate, marking the second time in a row that WEOG's selection of a candidate for GA President has been competitive.

Deiss has served on the Swiss Federal Council in several key positions, as former Federal Councillor for the Department of Foreign Affairs (Minister of Foreign Affairs) and head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs. In 2004, he was named President of the Swiss Confederation. He was elected by acclamation by the General Assembly on June 11th, 2010 and officially took office during the first day of the 64th session on September 14, 2010. 

Coming Up
The next President of the 66th Session has been put forward by the Asian Group of 53 countries at the UN. At a secret voting session held in February 2011, they selected Qatar´s Ambassador to the UN Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser as their candidate, over Nepal's candidate, Kul Chandra Gautam. Nepal and Qatar were only two countries from the Asian group vying for the post of GA president.[2]

The regional nominations for the next five years are as follows:

  • 65th GA - Western European and Other States (2010-2011)
  • 66th GA - Asian States (2011-2012)
  • 67th GA - Eastern Europe (2012-2013)
  • 68th GA - Latin American and Caribbean States (2013-2014)
  • 69th GA - African States (2014-2015)
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[1] "The Convention of the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations," A/Res/22A (1), 13 February 1946.
[2] "Nepal loses battle for UNGA President," 27 February 2011, Asian Tribune . 


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