Uniting for Peace

Uniting for Peace refers to General Assembly resolution 377 A (V), adopted on 3 November 1950 during the Korean War, largely at the initiative of US Secretary of State Dean Acheson. It establishes that when the Security Council fails to exercise its primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security "because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members," the General Assembly may take up the matter immediately and recommend collective measures, including the use of armed force to restore peace.

The mechanism allows the GA to convene an Emergency Special Session (ESS) within 24 hours, called either by a procedural vote of any nine Security Council members (a vote not subject to the veto) or by a majority of UN member states. Recommendations require a two-thirds majority of members present and voting.

Crucially, GA resolutions under this procedure are recommendations, not binding decisions under Chapter VII. The legal weight of Uniting for Peace has been debated since its adoption; the Soviet Union and later Russia, China, and some scholars have questioned its consistency with Articles 11, 12, and 24 of the UN Charter, which give the Security Council primary responsibility for peace and security. The International Court of Justice referenced the procedure in its 1962 Certain Expenses advisory opinion and its 2004 advisory opinion on the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the latter requested through the Tenth Emergency Special Session.

Only eleven Emergency Special Sessions had been convened as of 2022, covering crises including the Suez Crisis (1956), Hungary (1956), Lebanon (1958), the Congo (1960), Afghanistan (1980), and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the Security Council voted on 27 February 2022 to convene the Eleventh ESS.

In Model UN, Uniting for Peace is occasionally simulated in crisis or specialised GA committees but is rarely invoked in standard GA rules of procedure unless the conference explicitly enables it.