The UN Charter specifically confers the right to create subsidiary organs upon the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the Economic and Social Council. The subsidiary bodies fluctuate in number from year to year, according to the changing requirements of the main organ concerned. Both the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, for instance, often create subsidiary bodies to assist them in new fields of concern and dissolve others that have completed their work. Some of the subsidiary organs in turn set up their own subsidiary units—working groups, subcommittees, and the like.
The General Assembly's subsidiary organs range in complexity and status from temporary committees to semiautonomous institutions that maintain their own secretariats or administrative departments. The names of the institutions or programs in existence in 2002, most of which were set up under the joint aegis of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and operate through ECOSOC, appear in the lower left-hand column of the UN Family of Organizations chart. The remaining subsidiary organs are too numerous to list; the chart merely indicates their principal types: main and other sessional committees, standing committees and ad hoc bodies, and other subsidiary organs and related bodies.
The main and sessional committees comprise representatives of all member states and are formally reconstituted at each regular General Assembly session to discuss the various items on the agenda for that year. Two sessional committees are not committees of the whole—the 28-member General Committee, which reviews the General Assembly's agenda prior to its adoption at each session, and the nine-member Credentials Committee, which examines the credentials of delegations sent to each General Assembly session.
There are many standing committees, ad hoc bodies, and other subsidiary organs and related bodies. Some of the more important of these are:
Substantive committees have been set up by General Assembly resolutions to study specific subjects of interest—for example, the peaceful uses of outer space, South Africa's former system of apartheid, and independence for colonial territories. Such committees, whose members are elected by the General Assembly or appointed by its president, usually meet several times a year. At each regular session, they report on their deliberations. They continue as long as is considered necessary. Even when their mandate seems completed, they are not necessarily formally disbanded but may be adjourned indefinitely and reactivated when the need arises. It is through these committees that the General Assembly accomplishes most of its work outside the spheres of responsibility that are specifically entrusted to the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, or the various semiautonomous bodies referred to above.
The Military Staff Committee was established by the charter to advise the Security Council on the military aspects of maintaining international peace. However, the Military Staff Committee secretariat, though it holds regular formal meetings, has never been consulted on any of the UN's peacekeeping operations. The other subsidiary bodies shown on the chart in the lower right-hand column were set up, as their names suggest, to conduct the council's peacekeeping operations in the areas specified. Between June 1948 and September 2002, there were 55 peacekeeping operations, of which 40 were complete. (For further information on the work of these bodies, see the chapter on International Peace and Security.)
The Security Council, as of late 2002, maintained two standing committees, each including representatives of all Security Council member states: Committee of Experts on Rules of Procedure (studies and advises on rules of procedure and other technical matters); and Committee on Admission of New Members. Additionally, there are various ad hoc committees, established as needed; these comprise all council members and meet in closed session. In late 2002, the following ad hoc committees had been formed: Security Council Committee on Council meeting away from Headquarters; Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission established by Security Council resolution 692 (1991); and Committee established pursuant to Resolution 1373 (2001) concerning Counter-Terrorism.
The Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the charter, which deals with "action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression," may set up committees to monitor compliance by member states with its resolutions. As of November 2002, the following committees had been set up: in 1966, when it imposed mandatory economic sanctions against the illegal regime in Southern Rhodesia; in 1977, when it imposed a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa; in 1991, after Iraq's unsuccessful invasion of Kuwait, to supervise the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; in 1992, concerning the situations in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Somalia; in 1993, concerning Angola; in 1994, concerning the volatile situation created by Hutu rebels in Rwanda; in 1995, concerning Liberia; in 1997, in the wake of years of civil war in Sierra Leone; in 1998, concerning an arms embargo on Yugoslavia, including Kosovo; in 1999, concerning Afghanistan; in 2000, concerning the situation between Eritrea and Ethiopia; and in 2001, again concerning Liberia.
As indicated on the chart, there are four types of subsidiary organs of the Economic and Social Council:
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