The article systematizes and classifies the views of scholars regarding the problem of legal or political normativity of the UN General Assembly acts, not related to the resolution of UN organizational development issues. The starting position for the formation of the positions of some scholars is the traditional postulate regarding the inadmissibility of granting any supranational powers to international organizations, which involves understanding the resolutions of the UN GA as recommendatory with moral and political significance. In this regard, the most common and most developed understanding of the resolutions of the UN GA as of political acts that reflect or create acceptable for all or most states standards of proper and legitimate policy regarding a specific situation or in a specific field of activity. Also, resolutions of the UN GA are recognized as projects of future law (de lege ferenda), soft law, an auxiliary source of international law (the role in the customary international law norms formation). Regarding all this, there is a consensus, and UN GA resolutions are attributed an authorizing function, based on the presumption of legality or illegality of states behavior. Instead, the qualification by some researchers of the resolutions of the UN GA as legally binding unilateral acts of states or of the UN as an international organization, as well as interpretive legal acts, remains controversial. 

Bibliography

Authored books

1. Arangio-Ruiz G, The United Nations Declaration on Friendly Relations and the system of the sources of international law (Sijthoff & Noordhoff 1979) (in English).

2. Malanczuk P, Akehurst’s modern introduction to international law (7th revised ed, Routledge 1997) (in English).

3. Shaw M N, International Law (8th ed, Cambridge University Press 2017) (in English).

4. Tolstyh V, Kurs mezhdunarodnogo prava: Uchebnik (Volters Kluver 2010) (in Russian).

5. Zadorozhnii O, Butkevych V, Mytsyk V, Osnovy teorii mizhnarodnoho prava: Konspekt lektsii (Instytut mizhnarodnykh vidnosyn Kyivskoho natsionalnoho universytetu im. T Shevchenka 2001) (in Ukrainian).

Edited and translated books

6. Besson S, Tasioulas J (ed), The philosophy of international law (Oxford University Press 2010) (in English).

7. Kuok Din’ N, Daje P, Pelle A, Mezhdunarodnoe publichnoe pravo, t 1 (per s fr, Sfera 2000) (in Russian).

8. Mezhdunarodnoe pravo: uchebnik (Ignatenko G, Tiunov O red, 6-e izd, Norma: INFRA M 2013) (in Russian).

 9. Valeev R, Kurdjukov G (red), Mezhdunarodnoe pravo: Uchebnik (Statut 2017) (in Russian).

Encyclopedias

10. Denysov V, ‘Orhanizatsiia Ob’iednanykh Natsii’ v Entsyklopediia mizhnarodnoho prava, t 3: M–Ia (Shemshuchenko Iu, V Denysov red, Akademperiodyka 2019) 455 (in Ukrainian).

11. Denysov V, ‘Rezoliutsii Heneralnoi Asamblei OON’ v Entsyklopediia mizhnarodnoho prava. t 3: M–Ia (Shemshuchenko Iu, Denysov V red, Akademperiodyka 2019) 684–5 (in Ukrainian).

Journal articles

12. Barber R, ‘An exploration of the General Assembly’s troubled relationship with unilateral sanctions’ (2021) 70 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 344–5 (in English).

13. Falk R A, ‘On the quasi-legislative competence of the General Assembly’ (1966) 60 The American Journal of International Law 784 (in English).

14. Öberg M D, ‘The Legal Effects of Resolutions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly in the Jurisprudence of the ICJ’ [2006] 16 (5) The European Journal of International Law 883, 905 (in English).

15. Ramsden M, ‘Collective Legalization as a Strategic Function of the UN General Assembly in Responding to Human Rights Violations’ (2022) The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law Research Paper Forthcoming <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=4048484> (accessed: 06.12.2022) (in English).

16. Skubiszewski Kr, ‘The Elaboration of General Multilateral Conventions and of Noncontractual Instruments Having a Normative Function or Objective. Resolutions of the General Assembly of the United States’ [1985] 61 (I) Annuaire. Institut de Droit International. Session d’Helsinki 32–3 (in English).

17. Skubiszewski Kr, ‘The elaboration of general multilateral conventions and of noncontractual instruments having a normative function or objective. Resolutions of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Definitive Report and Draft Resolution’ [1985] 61 (I) Annuaire. Institut de Droit International. Session d’Helsinki 312 (in English).

18. Talmon S, ‘The Legalizing and Legitimizing Function of UN General Assembly Resolutions’ (2014) 108 AJIL Unbound 123–28 (in English).

19. Kresin O, ‘Kharakter povnovazhen ta aktiv Heneralnoi Asamblei OON: statutni polozhennia ta evoliutsiia yikh tlumachennia’ (2022) 7 Pravo Ukrainy 112–26 (in Ukrainian).

20. Shvarceva M, ‘Reformirovanie Parlamentskoj Assamblei Soveta Evropy’ (2015) 8/3 Legea si Viata 117 (in Russian).

Websites

21. The Elaboration of General Multilateral Conventions and of Non-contractual Instruments Having a Normative Function or Objective. Thirteenth Commission. Session of Cairo – 1987. Rapporteur K. Skubiszewski (Institute of International Law. Compilation Resolutions 1873–2017) <https://www.idi-iil.org/app/uploads/2019/06/Annexe-1bisCompilation-Resolutions-EN.pdf> (accessed: 06.11.2022) (in English).