Summary
The General Assembly’s resolution of 10 November 1975, which reaffirms Resolution 3236 (XXIX), expresses grave concern that no progress has been achieved towards the Palestinian people’s exercise of its inalienable rights in Palestine or the Palestinians’ return to their homes and property, decides to establish a Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People composed of twenty Member States, requests the Committee to recommend a programme of implementation of the rights recognized in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Resolution 3236 and to report through the Secretary-General to the Security Council no later than 1 June 1976, requests the Council to consider the question as soon as possible after that date, and authorizes a further Committee report to the thirty-first session taking the Council’s action into account (Resolution 3376 (XXX): Question of Palestine (10 November 1975), PDF p.1-2).
What the file is
The resolution as printed in the General Assembly’s Official Records, thirtieth session, printed p.3-4. 2 PDF pages, about 1,862 words in the text copy counting the whole pages. Printed p.3 also carries Resolution 3369 (XXX) on observer status for the Islamic Conference and Resolution 3375 (XXX) inviting the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in Middle East peace efforts, both accounted for below; printed p.4 carries the conclusion of the note appointing the Committee’s twenty members and Resolutions 3385, 3386 and the opening of 3391, none of which is part of Resolution 3376. Dates print as 10 November 1975 (the text copy renders 10 as “JO”) and 17 December 1975 for the appointment meeting. The text copy’s OCR is heavily garbled throughout; the operative wording was checked against the original’s printed pages, which read the passages cleanly.
Section by section
- Resolution 3369 (XXX) (PDF p.1). Observer status for the Islamic Conference: the Assembly decides to invite the Islamic Conference to participate in the sessions and work of the General Assembly and its subsidiary organs as observer. 2383rd plenary meeting, 10 October 1975. Not part of Resolution 3376.
- Resolution 3375 (XXX) (PDF p.1). Invitation to the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in the efforts for peace in the Middle East: reaffirming resolution 3236 (XXIX), in which it recognized the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people, and convinced that Palestinian participation is essential to a just and lasting peace, it requests the Security Council to adopt the measures to enable the Palestinian people to exercise its inalienable national rights under 3236; calls for the invitation of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the representative of the Palestinian people, to participate in all efforts, deliberations and conferences on the Middle East held under United Nations auspices, on an equal footing with other parties, on the basis of resolution 3236; requests the Secretary-General to inform the Co-Chairmen of the Peace Conference on the Middle East and secure the PLO’s invitation to the Conference and all other efforts for peace; and requests a Secretary-General’s report. 2399th plenary meeting, 10 November 1975 — the same meeting as Resolution 3376.
- Preamble (PDF p.1). Recalling resolution 3236 (XXIX) of 22 November 1974; taking note of the Secretary-General’s report on its implementation (A/10265); deeply concerned that no just solution to the problem of Palestine has yet been achieved; recognizing that the problem continues to endanger international peace and security.
- Operative paragraphs 1-2 (PDF p.1). Reaffirms resolution 3236 (XXIX); expresses grave concern that no progress has been achieved towards (a) the exercise by the Palestinian people of its inalienable rights in Palestine, including self-determination without external interference and national independence and sovereignty, and (b) the exercise by Palestinians of their inalienable right to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted.
- Operative paragraph 3 (PDF p.1). Decides to establish a Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People composed of twenty Member States to be appointed by the General Assembly at the current session.
- Operative paragraphs 4-6 (PDF p.1). Requests the Committee to consider and recommend a programme of implementation designed to enable the Palestinian people to exercise the rights recognized in paragraphs 1 and 2 of resolution 3236 (XXIX), taking into account all the powers conferred by the Charter upon the principal organs of the United Nations; authorizes the Committee to establish contact with and receive and consider suggestions and proposals from any State and intergovernmental regional organization and the Palestine Liberation Organization; requests the Secretary-General to provide the Committee all necessary facilities.
- Operative paragraphs 7-11 (PDF p.1). Requests the Committee to submit its report and recommendations to the Secretary-General no later than 1 June 1976, the Secretary-General to transmit it to the Security Council; requests the Council to consider the question of the exercise of the rights recognized in paragraphs 1 and 2 of resolution 3236 as soon as possible after 1 June 1976; requests the Secretary-General to inform the Committee of the Council’s action; authorizes the Committee, taking that action into consideration, to submit a report with its observations and recommendations to the thirty-first session; decides to include the item entitled Question of Palestine in the provisional agenda of its thirty-first session. 2399th plenary meeting, 10 November 1975. No vote figures are given.
- Appointment note (PDF p.1-2). At its 2443rd plenary meeting, on 17 December 1975, the Assembly appointed the twenty member States of the Committee: Afghanistan, Cuba, Cyprus, German Democratic Republic, Guinea, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Madagascar, Malaysia, Malta, Pakistan, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and Yugoslavia (computed from the printed list: 20 names).
- Following material (PDF p.2). Resolution 3385 (XXX) admitting the Comoros, Resolution 3386 (XXX) on the IAEA report, and the opening of Resolution 3391 (XXX) on restitution of works of art. Not part of Resolution 3376.
Key passages
- “composed of twenty Member States” (operative paragraph 3, deciding to establish the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, PDF p.1).
Evidence the work relies on
A General Assembly resolution, not an evidentiary work. Its substantive basis is resolution 3236 (XXIX), which it reaffirms and whose paragraphs 1 and 2 supply the rights the new Committee’s programme is to implement, and the Secretary-General’s report on the implementation of 3236 (A/10265), which the preamble takes note of without summarizing. It cites no other reports or statistics.
Analysis
Where Resolution 3236 (XXIX): Question of Palestine (22 November 1974) declared the rights, this resolution builds machinery for them: a twenty-State committee with a dated reporting line (report by 1 June 1976, transmission to the Security Council, Council consideration after that date, and a second report to the next Assembly session informed by the Council’s action). The Committee may hear any State, regional organization and the PLO, but its product is recommendations to the Assembly; the text confers no power to implement the programme itself. The appointment note printed with the resolution fixes the original membership, which the existing Committee page’s account from the United Nations study matches name for name, with Guyana, Mali and Nigeria recorded there as joining in 1976.
People, organizations, places and events
UN General Assembly Resolution 3376, Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, Palestine Liberation Organization, Geneva Peace Conference on the Middle East
Concepts
Self-determination, Right of Return
How it relates to other sources
This is the establishing text for the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, whose 1976 report, Security Council history and later work the wiki already holds from the United Nations studies and the 1978 right-of-return study; those accounts are now held alongside the mandate wording itself, including the 1 June 1976 deadline the studies’ narrative presupposes. Its companion on the same page, Resolution 3375 (XXX), presses the participation side of the same programme — PLO invitation on an equal footing, including to the Peace Conference on the Middle East — against the refusal of the Geneva Conference recorded a year earlier in point 1 of the PLO Interim Political Program (Ten-Point Program) (8 June 1974). Resolution 3369 (XXX) on the same page extends the observer form of Resolution 3237 (XXIX): Observer status for the Palestine Liberation Organization (22 November 1974) to the Islamic Conference.
Open questions
- The file gives no vote figures for Resolution 3376 or for Resolutions 3369 and 3375 on the same page.
- The Secretary-General’s report A/10265, taken note of in the preamble, is not reproduced or summarized in the file.
- The resolution does not say how the twenty member States were chosen, or provide for observers to the Committee.
Coverage
PDF p.1-2 of 2, read in full.