Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM)

drug control.” 1 Each session, the Social, Humanitarian
and Cultural Committee considers about sixty draft
resolutions on these different topics and makes its
recommendations through a vote of the majority of
the UN membership.
during the past sixty-six years, the Social,
Humanitarian and Cultural Committee has seen
more colorful debate than perhaps any other body
of the General Assembly because of the nature of
the topics that it discusses. Member nations have
hurled accusations of human rights violations across
the floor of the chamber of the UN Headquarters in
New York, and there has been genuine ideological
differences among them on many of the most pressing
humanitarian crises of our time. 2 3 SOCHUM has also
seen a clear manifestation of the rising influence of
developing countries in the United Nations; as their
membership has increased significantly since 1960,
SOCHUM has focused less on issues of individual
rights, a path favored by Western nations, and more
on group rights, an area of concern for the third
World. 4 Despite the conflicts that have arisen in the
committee, SOCHUM has been the site of a number
of triumphs for the united Nations system. Because
of its emphasis on women’s rights, it has always had
more female delegates than any other committee. 5 it
has also drafted some of the important resolutions
in the history of the united Nations, including the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, the two of which took over
ten years to write. 6
Because so much of its work falls under the
mandate of other main committees and united
Nations organizations, the Social, Humanitarian and
Cultural Committee has sometimes been considered
to be the “problem child” of the General Assembly. 7
On the other hand, one can consider this to be one
of the greatest strengths of the committee. SOCHUM
is forced to work closely with other bodies within
the united Nations system, which forces greater
understanding and compromise. Additionally, the
topics that fall under the mandate of SOCHUM
do have a unifying theme, as these are the issues
The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee was created at the first session of the General Assembly in 1946.
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