Countries: World, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic Source: United Nations University Please refer to the attached file. The Charter of the United Nations (UN) provides the Security Council (SC) with ‘primary responsibility’ for international peace and security (Article 24); however, it also empowers the General Assembly (GA) to play a significant role in the maintenance of peace and security. Over the past 80 years, the GA has engaged with a wide range of peace and security matters, including responding to ‘acts of aggression’, the outbreak or escalation of internal conflict and other use of force situations. The GA has responded to such situations with a range of measures, including calling for ceasefires or the withdrawal of forces, supporting good offices or mediation efforts, and calling attention to international law violations and humanitarian needs. The GA has also played an important role in keeping prolonged conflicts or crises on the agenda, calling attention to continued human rights or humanitarian issues, and using its convening power to address long-term, structural drivers of conflict. This research study is part of a follow-on initiative to the 2024 Assembly for Peace: A Digital Handbook on the UN General Assembly’s Past Practice on Peace and Security. This study builds on the learning from the second chapter of the Handbook on ‘use of force’ with consideration of a greater number of situations (to a total of 46), five additional case studies in the annex, and a more systematic analysis of when and how the GA typically responds to conflict outbreaks or other use of force situations. The analysis also draws linkages between use of force responses and the other practice areas in the 2024 Handbook, such as those on good offices, accountability initiatives and sanctions, and incorporates new material analysing GA attention to humanitarian issues as part of its conflict response.

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