(a) Describe the various powers and functions of the General Assembly. (20 marks) (b) Explain the maxim "Pacta Tertiis Nec…

General Assembly The General Assembly is the UN’s principal deliberative organ. Under Articles 10–17 and related provisions, it may discuss any matter within the Charter and make recommendations, except when a matter is before the Security Council. It initiates studies, reports, and recommends measures for peaceful settlement. It considers Security Council and ICJ reports (Arts. 15–16). It controls the budget, assesses contributions, and may suspend voting rights for arrears. It recommends admission of new members, elects non-permanent Security Council members, and, with the Security Council, elects ICJ judges concurrently and independently, not jointly. Its resolutions are generally recommendatory, not binding; exceptions arise in internal UN matters such as budget decisions and elections. The Uniting for Peace Resolution 377(V) (1950) allowed it, in emergency special session, to recommend collective measures, including force, if the Security Council is paralysed. Its significance is political and normative, not a conversion of recommendations into binding obligations. Its recommendations may influence customary law and state practice.

Pacta tertiis Pacta tertiis nec nocent nec prosunt means a treaty neither creates obligations nor confers rights for a third state without consent. It is customary law codified in VCLT Articles 34–38. Article 34 states the rule; Articles 35–37 allow limited third-party beneficiary or intervener effects where the treaty intends them and the third state accepts. It distinguishes objective regimes, creating general norms for all states, from subjective regimes regulating only parties. Objective regimes may include human rights or environmental treaties with erga omnes-like effects. In Free Zones of Upper Savoy and Gex (PCIJ 1932), Switzerland could not claim rights under a France–Sardinia treaty. In Reparation for Injuries (ICJ 1949), the UN’s rights derived from the Charter, not automatically from member-state treaties. In North Sea Continental Shelf (ICJ 1969), the 1958 Convention did not bind Germany as a non-party. Nuclear Tests (ICJ 1974) is not a pacta tertiis exception; it shows France’s unilateral declarations could bind France, but did not create erga omnes obligations or third-state treaty rights.

Self-defence Article 51 preserves inherent individual or collective self-defence after an armed attack, until the Security Council acts. The Caroline formula (1837) requires necessity to be instant, overwhelming, and leave no choice of means or moment for deliberation, with proportionate response. The Caroline standard remains the customary baseline. Modern parameters are necessity, proportionality, and immediacy/imminence. Pre-emptive action against an imminent concrete armed attack may be defensible narrowly; preventive action against speculative threats is generally unlawful. In Nicaragua (ICJ 1986), self-defence required an armed attack of significant scale and did not cover mere support to insurgents. In Oil Platforms (ICJ 2003), the Court again tied self-defence to armed attack and proportionality. The 2003 Iraq intervention was widely treated as preventive, not lawful self-defence, because the threat was not imminent and the Security Council had not authorised force. Israel’s 1981 Osirak strike was strongly condemned by Security Council Resolution 487(1981) as a clear violation of the Charter, not a lawful pre-emptive act. The post-9/11 Bush Doctrine, advocating anticipatory force against imminent threats, was rejected by many states and not codified; some accommodate narrow imminence, but preventive self-defence remains controversial. India supports a narrow Article 51 position, invoking self-defence against cross-border terrorism after armed attacks, while rejecting broad preventive force; its 2019 Balakot strikes are framed as self-defence but remain legally contested. India’s position is relevant to debates on state-sponsored terrorism.

These areas intersect: the Assembly’s recommendatory role shapes norms, pacta tertiis limits treaty effects to consent, and self-defence is constrained by armed attack, necessity, and proportionality, preserving the Charter’s balance between sovereignty and collective security.