CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

MAREK ZUKAL – ANNA MATOUŠKOVÁ CYIL 14 (2023) ACTIVITIES OF THE SIXTH COMMITTEE OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY DURING ITS 77 TH SESSION Marek Zukal 1 Anna Matoušková 2 During the 77 th session of the UN General Assembly, its Sixth Committee (Legal Committee) met not only in the autumn, as usual, but also for a resumed session in the spring of 2023. While the Committee considered a variety of agenda items during its autumn session (among them for example Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, report of the International Law Commission or Diplomatic protection, to name just a few), the resumed spring session focused on a single topic: Crimes against humanity. Having considered all the agenda items allocated to it, the Sixth Committee recommended that the General Assembly adopt of 24 resolutions and 10 decisions. In the past, Legal Advisers of the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations have provided overviews of the work of the Committee in the Czech Yearbook of Public and Private International Law 3 . This article is a continuation of that practice and attempts to provide a brief summary of the developments in the Committee from a first-hand perspective. Overview of Sixth Committee’s session in 2022 For the 77 th session of the General Assembly, the Bureau of the Sixth Committee was composed of representatives of Mozambique (Chair of the Committee), Bulgaria, Iceland, Guatemala (Vice-Chairs) and Malaysia (Rapporteur); the Chair of the Committee – Permanent Representative of Mozambique to the UN, H. E. Pedro Comissário Afonso – being former member of the ILC. In contrast to the previous year, the Committee held its session under “pre-covid conditions”, i.e., the meetings took place in the Trusteeship Council Chamber and all informal consultations on draft resolutions were held in person (as opposed to the virtual format in 2021). 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. m.zukal@hotmail.com. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, 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. 2 Anna Matoušková is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in international law at the Faculty of Law, Charles University. During autumn 2022, she was an intern at the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations in New York, covering the agenda of the Sixth Committee. matouskovaanna@post.cz. 3 See for example VÁLEK, Petr. The Activities of the Sixth Committee During the 66 th Session of the UN General Assembly: Business as Usual? In: ŠTURMA, Pavel (ed.). Czech Yearbook of Public and Private International Law . Prague: Czech Society of International Law, 2012, pp. 293–319. ISSN 1805-0565; or ZUKAL, Marek and Jan MAIS. Activities of the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly during its 76 th session. In: ŠTURMA, Pavel (ed.). Czech Yearbook of Public and Private International Law . Prague: Czech Society of International Law, 2022, pp. 386–401. ISSN 1805-0565.

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