General Assembly

Since I will probably be mentioning the United Nations often in my entries, I thought it would be useful to give readers a background in case they don't know much about the organization. What follows is a very brief introduction to one of the UN's main organs, the General Assembly. I'll be continuing this theme until my readers have a good idea of what goes on in that big, funny shaped building in New York.
The General Assembly
The United Nations is not known for swift effective action, nor is it known for its ability to produce results. What it does do however, is work as a thermometer for world opinion on decisive issues. To see this, one needs only look at the General Assembly, which remains the only organization of truly universal membership on earth. It is only able to issue non binding resolutions, but it can give you a pretty good indicator of what the world is thinking.
The General Assembly was built on the principal of sovereign equality, which means that any state, no matter how large or how small, gets an equal vote in deliberations. This may sound nice, but it does mean that the GA doesn't necessarily reflect the real politics of the world at large. In the GA, massive India, China and the United States all have the same vote as Lichtenstein and Micronesia. For this reason, the GA is a place where small nations try to exert their influence over the big guys. This setup means that most of the resolutions that actually pass the GA are broad, popular statements. Bear this in mind when reading over the resolutions that go through this body. Also remember that they cannot issue binding resolutions, only the Security Council (which you will learn all about next entry!) can do that.