Subsidiary Organs

<h2 >Subsidiary organs</h2>

The United Nations General Assembly building.</div>

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<p >The General Assembly subsidiary organs are divided into five categories: committees (30 total, six main), commissions (seven), boards (six), councils and panels (five), working groups, and "other".</p>

<h3 >[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_Nations_General_Assembly&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: Committees" >edit</a>]Committees</h3>

<h4 >[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_Nations_General_Assembly&action=edit&section=10" title="Edit section: Main committees" >edit</a>]Main committees</h4>

<p >The main committees are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number" title="Ordinal number" >ordinally numbered</a>, 1–6:</p>

<ul >

<li >The First Committee: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Assembly_First_Committee" title="General Assembly First Committee" >Disarmament and International Security</a> (DISEC)</li>

<li >The Second Committee: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_and_Financial_Committee" title="Economic and Financial Committee" >Economic and Financial</a> (ECOFIN)</li>

<li >The Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian (SOCHUM)</li>

<li >The Fourth Committee: Special Political and Decolonisation (SPECPOL)</li>

<li >The Fifth Committee: Administrative and Budgetary</li>

<li >The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Sixth_Committee_(Legal)" title="United Nations General Assembly Sixth Committee (Legal)" >Sixth Committee: Legal</a>.</li>

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<p >The roles of many of the main committees have changed over time. Until the late 1970s, the First Committee was the Political and Security Committee (POLISEC) and there was also a sufficient number of additional "political" matters that an additional, unnumbered main committee, called the Special Political Committee, also sat. The Fourth Committee formerly handled Trusteeship and Decolonization matters. With the decreasing number of such matters to be addressed as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_territories" title="Trust territories" class="mw-redirect" >trust territories</a> attained independence and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization" title="Decolonization" >decolonization</a> movement progressed, the functions of the Special Political Committee were merged into the Fourth Committee during the 1990s.

Each main committee consists of all the members of the General Assembly. Each elects a chairman, three vice chairmen, and a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapporteur" title="Rapporteur" >rapporteur</a> at the outset of each regular General Assembly session.</p>

<h4 >Other committees</h4>

Soviet General Secretary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev" title="Mikhail Gorbachev" >Mikhail Gorbachev</a> addresses the UN General Assembly in December 1988.</div>

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<p >These are not numbered. According to the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.un.org/ga/61/background/committees.shtml" >General Assembly website</a>, the most important are:</p>

<ul >

<li >Credentials Committee – This committee is charged with ensuring that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credential#Diplomacy" title="Credential" >diplomatic credentials</a> of all UN representatives are in order. The Credentials Committee consists of nine Member States elected early in each regular General Assembly session.</li>

<li >General Committee – This is a supervisory committee entrusted with ensuring that the whole meeting of the Assembly goes smoothly. The General Committee consists of the president and vice presidents of the current General Assembly session and the chairman of each of the six Main Committees.</li>

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<p >Other committees of the General Assembly are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumeration" title="Enumeration" >enumerated</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly#cite_note-11" >[12]</a></sup></p>