An emergency special session is an unscheduled meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to make urgent recommendations on a particular issue. They are typically rare — a fact reflected in there being only 10 in the history of the United Nations. Most emergency special sessions run for a single "meeting", which itself can run over a number of days — the Tenth, however, is the only emergency special session to be resumed more than once (the Seventh emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly was resumed once), meaning that that Session has spanned across a number of "meetings".
The UN General Assembly's 'Uniting for Peace' resolution (A/RES/377 A) demands a majority—procedural—vote of the Security Council, or a request by a majority of UN Member states being received by the Secretary-General, for the convocation of an emergency special session, within 24 hours.
| Emergency special session | Topic | Convened by | Date | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First | Suez Crisis | Security Council | 1–10 November 1956 | A/3354 |
| Second | Soviet invasion of Hungary (Hungarian Revolution) | Security Council | 4–10 November 1956 | A/3355 |
| Third | Lebanon crisis | Security Council | 8–21 August 1958 | A/3905 |
| Fourth | Congo Crisis | Security Council | 17–19 September 1960 | A/4510 |
| Fifth | Six-Day War | Soviet Union | 17 June-18 September 1967 | A/6798 |
| Sixth | Soviet invasion of Afghanistan | Security Council | 10–14 January 1980 | ES-6/1, 2 |
| Seventh | Israeli-Palestinian conflict | Senegal |
22–29 July 1980 |
ES-7/1, 2, 3 |
| Eighth | South African occupation of Namibia (South West Africa) | Zimbabwe | 3–14 September 1981 | ES-8/1, 2 |
| Ninth | Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights (Golan Heights Law) | Security Council | 29 January-5 February 1982 | ES-9/1 |
| Tenth | Israeli-Palestinian conflict (East Jerusalem and Israeli-occupied territories) | Qatar |
24–25 April 1997 |
ES-10/1, 2 |
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, emergency, special, united, nations, general and/or assembly:
“The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935)
“Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In this country, you never pull the emergency brake, even when there is an emergency. It is imperative that the trains run on schedule.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“When a mother quarrels with a daughter, she has a double dose of unhappiness—hers from the conflict, and empathy with her daughter’s from the conflict with her. Throughout her life a mother retains this special need to maintain a good relationship with her daughter.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America; for better and cheaper transportation; for low interest rates; for sounder home financing; for better banking; for the regulation of security issues; for reciprocal trade among nations and for the wiping out of slums. And my friends, for all of these we have only begun to fight.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Every writer is necessarily a critic—that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on.... The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg—nine-tenths of him is under water.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)
“There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)