The legitimacy of the UN Security Council: evidence from recent General Assembly debates

Existing research on the legitimacy of the UN Security Council is conceptual or theoretical, for the most part, as scholars tend to make legitimacy assessments with reference to objective standards. Whether UN member states perceive the Security Council as legitimate or illegitimate has yet to be investigated systematically; nor do we know whether states care primarily about the Council's compliance with its legal mandate, its procedures, or its effectiveness. To address this gap, our article analyzes evaluative statements made by states in UN General Assembly debates on the Security Council, for the period 1991–2009. In making such statements, states confer legitimacy on the Council or withhold legitimacy from it. We conclude the following: First, the Security Council suffers from a legitimacy deficit because negative evaluations of the Council by UN member states far outweigh positive ones. Nevertheless, the Council does not find itself in an intractable legitimacy crisis because it still enjoys a rudimentary degree of legitimacy. Second, the Council's legitimacy deficit results primarily from states' concerns regarding the body's procedural shortcomings. Misgivings as regards shortcomings in performance rank second. Whether or not the Council complies with its legal mandate has failed to attract much attention at all.

Haptically enabled interactive virtual reality prototype for general assembly

Desktop computers based virtual training systems are attracting paramount attention from manufacturing industries due to their potential advantages over the conventional training practices. Significant cost savings can be realized due to the shorter training-scenarios development times and reuse of existing engineering models. In addition, by using computer based virtual reality (VR) training systems, the time span from the product design to commercial production can be shortened due to non-reliance on hardware parts. Within the aforementioned conceptual framework, a haptically enabled interactive and immersive virtual reality (HIIVR) system is presented. Unlike existing VR systems, the presented idea tries to imitate real physical training scenarios by providing comprehensive user interaction, constrained within the physical limitations of the real world imposed by the haptics devices within the virtual environment. As a result, in contrast to the existing VR systems, capable of providing knowledge generally about assembly sequences only, the proposed system helps in procedural learning and procedural skill development as well, due to its high physically interactive nature.

Resoluciones aprobadas por el Consejo Económico y Social (47, 48 y 49 períodos de sesiones) y por la Asamblea General (24 y 25 períodos de sesiones) = Resolutions adopted by the Economic and Social Council (47, 48 and 49 sessions) and by the General Assembly (24 and 25 session)

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Lista de las principales resoluciones relacionadas con la Estrategia Internacional del Desarrollo y el Programa de Acción Regional aprobadas por la Asamblea General y el Consejo Económico y Social de las NU, la CEPAL y el CDCC = List of main resolutions adopted with regard to the International Development Strategy and the Regional Programme of Action by the General Assembly, United Nations Economic and Social Council, ECLA and CDCC

Contiene el título de las resoluciones y su número.

Nota de la Secretaría sobre la recomendación de la Asamblea General para modificar el nombre de la Comisión = Note by the Secretariat on the General Assembly's recommendation regarding the renaming of the Commission

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