The Legal Committee

The Legal committee, also known as the Sixth committee, was officially established in 1946 following the first United Nations General Assembly session held in London. This committee serves to be the primary forum within the General Assembly to establish, debate, and challenge legal disputes and international law. Since their establishment in 1946, the legal committee has greatly contributed to the creation and strengthening of international laws and legal structures. 

Today, they work closely with the International Law Commission (ILC) to discuss legal issues and frameworks, establishing and codifying international rules. With their combined efforts, the Legal committee and the ILC contribute to the creation of new international laws, as well as the solidification and verification of existing ones. 

During this conference, delegates will act as representatives as member states in the Legal committee to define and act on the following legal issues.  

According to the UN’s OHCHR, reproductive rights are essential to human rights and entails a set of freedoms. Reproductive rights is more than the ability to freely make decisions about one's body, but also the freedom to safely make a decision without the fear of violence and discrimination. The definition, protection, and recognition of these rights vary from region to region with countries’ religious and constitutional laws playing a significant role in developing their perspective on the topic. 

Infractions of these reproductive rights are usually seen through gender-based violence, absence or lack of family planning, maternal mortality, and adequate health services. Globally individuals living in marginalized and stigmatized communities may lack the autonomy to safely, and freely, make informed decisions about their bodies. It has become a growingly pressing conversation about the ability of governments to dictate their citizens’ right to exercise their ability to make decisions about their body, without the fear of harm and legal repercussions. 

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) goal 3 focuses on ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellness for all, and the lack of reproductive rights sets the world further from reaching this. For instance, the UN has claimed that globally around 800 women die daily from childbirth with over half of those being preventable with access to quality healthcare and full autonomy of decisions regarding their body. 

With this, it is vital to call for a global transformation and develop long-standing legal policies that benefit women, and nations as a whole, to safely make decisions regarding their reproductive and sexual health. 

1. How should international organizations navigate through a countries’ domestic regulations around reproductive rights? Should international organizations have the right to interfere with a country's domestic laws?

2. Should countries be allowed to dictate how and if individuals are able to access contraceptives and preventative procedures? Do governments have the obligation to provide certain medical procedures, such as abortion?

3. Should domestic laws be able to take precedence over fundamental human rights?

4. Should international organizations be able to monitor statistics involving reproductive rights, or is that classified as violating national sovereignty? 

Sexual and reproductive health and rights | OHCHR 

Violations of women’s reproductive health rights trigger rise in preventable deaths | UN News 

Sexual and reproductive rights - Amnesty International 

In 2023, the UN’s environmental programme (UNEP) found that between the years of 2000 to 2019, there had been a total loss and damages costing at least $2.8 trillion contributing to climate change. Loss and damages can be separated into two categories, economic and non-economic. Economic loss and damages are quantifiable and can be measured, however, non-economic losses are non-quantifiable and often irreparable. These non-quantifiable damages are difficult to put in monetary terms as they often concern loss of culture, displacement, and irreversible damages to ecosystems. 

Environmental pressures, as a result of climate change, contribute to nations globally suffering from poverty, rapid rising of social inequalities, and other damaging economic factors. The UN’s principal judicial body pronounced that countries have an obligation to act with due diligence to protect the environment and act, in both legal and physical ways, that work towards preventing climate change. China, the United States, India, Russia, Indonesia, and the EU27 are nations with the highest contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2024, in which these GHG emissions trap heat in the earth's atmosphere, greatly contributing to climate change. 

The issue of climate change and damage to the earth's atmosphere becomes a transnational predicament as pollution, oil spills, mass waste, and global warming go beyond national borders, affecting everyone globally. This raises a more significant predicament of how repercussions should be allocated and if and when a nation's environmental damage can constitute as a violation of international law. 

1. At what point does negligence and failure to deliberately act on environmental damage constitute a violation of international law? 

2. How can international organizations allocate responsibility for loss and damages? How are they able to track which countries are responsible for which and how much damage is done? 

3. How can nations come together to create legal precedents that prevent further economic and non-economic loss and damages?

4. Are nations responsible for providing monetary remedies for environmental damages spilled onto other nations? 

GHG emissions of all world countries, 2025 report 

World Court says countries are legally obligated to curb emissions, protect climate | UN News 

About Loss and damage | UNEP - UN Environment Programme