CYIL vol. 13 (2022)

CYIL 13 ȍ2022Ȏ ACTIVITIES OF THE SIXTH COMMITTEE OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY … law, especially through the direct support of educational and training courses in developing countries. The agenda itemwas first considered by the Sixth Committee during the 21 st session in 1966. The initial consideration in the Sixth Committee during the 76 th session carried on in a similar manner to previous years. The delegates, in their speeches, emphasized that the Programme, through its capacity-building, was essential for the equal engagement of all Member States in the implementation of United Nations programmes and goals throughout the world. Moreover, Member States also addressed the temporary switch of the Programme’s activities to the online regime caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and also appealed to each other for more financial support for the Programme. The turn from the standard course of action came during the informal consultations when China breached the silence procedure and blocked, for some time, adoption of the draft resolution. The motive behind such action was its opposition to the reference in the draft resolution to the Reports of International Arbitral Awards published by the UN Secretariat 23 . Such reference used to be ordinarily part of the previous resolutions adopted under the agenda item. This year, though, the new volume of the collection contained the South China Sea Arbitration case, which China does not recognize and abide by. Even though the text of the arbitral award nor its name had not been cited in the draft resolution, the mere mention of the volume of the collection containing it served as a sufficient trigger for China to disrupt the usually uncontroversial negotiations of the resolution by breaching the silence procedure. Followingly, through its actions, China blocked reaching the consensus and managed to change the final text of the draft resolution, so the “controversial” paragraph does not mention the collection itself but merely “ notes the publishing activities of the Codification Division [of the UN Office of Legal Affairs]. ” 24 Consequently, the present case serves as an ideal example of the politicization of agenda items that previously had nothing to do with politics. Brief overview of other agenda items Except for the three abovementioned agenda items, the Sixth Committee considered other agenda items. A brief overview of their considerations follows. The Committee considered the Report of the ILC on the work of its seventy-second session 25 . The topics contained in the Report were divided into three clusters, first two of which were discussed during the International Law Week with presence of the Legal Advisers of the respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs. In the debate, the UNMember States expressed their views on the following topics: Protection of the Atmosphere, Provisional Application of Treaties, Immunity of State officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction, Sea-level rise in relation to international law, Succession of States in respect of State responsibility and General principles of law. The result of consideration of the Report by the Committee was adoption of three resolutions: so-called omnibus resolution 26 (i.e., resolution on the Report itself ), a resolution on Protection of the atmosphere 27 and a resolution on Provisional application 23 Reports of International Arbitral Awards, Vol. XXXIII. United Nations, 2020. ISBN 9789210052412 (available here: https://legal.un.org/riaa/volumes/riaa_XXXIII.pdf ). 24 Resolution No. A/RES/76/110 adopted by the General Assembly on December 9, 2021, paragraph 15. 25 UN document No. A/76/10 (available here: https://legal.un.org/ilc/reports/2021/english/a_76_10.pdf ).

26 Resolution No. A/RES/76/111 adopted by the General Assembly on December 9, 2021. 27 Resolution No. A/RES/76/112 adopted by the General Assembly on December 9, 2021.

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