CYIL vol. 13 (2022)

MAREK ZUKAL – JAN MAIS CYIL 13 ȍ2022Ȏ ACTIVITIES OF THE SIXTH COMMITTEE OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY DURING ITS 76 TH SESSION Marek Zukal 1 Jan Mais 2 The Sixth Committee (also known as the Legal Committee) of the UN General Assembly is the primary forum for consideration of issues relating to international law within the United Nations. Every autumn, the Committee has before itself number of agenda items to consider and to agree on texts of resolutions which are later adopted by the General Assembly under these agenda items. The agenda items allocated for the consideration to the Sixth Committee include topics such as Responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts, Measures to eliminate international terrorism, The scope and application of the principle of universal jurisdiction, Diplomatic protection, The law of transboundary aquifers and many others. Some of these agenda items are products of the International Law Commission (traditionally so-called draft articles 3 ) which often represent drafts of international conventions with a view of codification and progressive development of international law. Also, reports of subsidiary bodies of the General Assembly, such as the International Law Commission (ILC), the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the role of the Organization (Charter Committee) or the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), are substantively considered by the Sixth Committee. It is the role of the Legal Adviser at the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations to represent the Czech Republic in the Sixth Committee and to negotiate on behalf of the Czech Republic with representatives of other States. Given the amount of work during the Sixth Committee’s session, it could be sometimes difficult for one person to cover all the topics under consideration by the Committee. In such situations, the Legal Adviser may use – for certain limited tasks – the support of an intern, typically a student of a law school who is interested in learning more about international law in practice. As the authors of this article had an opportunity to actively participate in the work of the Sixth Committee in their capacities as Legal Adviser and intern, respectively, they now feel responsibility to fill possible information gap on the work of the Committee for those who could not follow it as closely as they did. In this endeavor they follow the practice of former Legal Advisers of the 1 Marek Zukal is the Legal Adviser at the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations in New York. Prior to that, he was a lawyer at the International Law Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. He studied at the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague (Mgr. – 2017, JUDr. – 2018) and the University of Economics and Business in Prague (Ing. – 2018). He is currently studying in a Ph.D. program at the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors, and do not necessarily correspond with the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and do not bind this institution in any way. The author would like to thank Mr. Petr Válek for his valuable comments. 2 Jan Mais is currently finishing his studies at the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague (Mgr.). During autumn 2021, he was an intern at the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations in New York, dealing with the Sixth Committee’s agenda. 3 Recently, the International Law Commission has more and more often adopted its outcomes in a form different from draft articles, as these are being more and more often replaced by draft principles, draft guidelines etc.

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