We can easily study the same and different points regarding composition and functions of the two major organs of the United Nations i.e.,General Assembly and Security Council.

I. Composition of the General Assembly: The General Assembly is the central body.The principles of sovereign equality and universality are embodied in its composition. All members of the United Nations (presently 191) are members of the General Assembly and irrespective of size or strength, every member has one vote in the Assembly. A vote cast by the United States, for example, is equivalent to the vote of Bhutan or Cuba.

II. Composition of Security Council:

(a) The Security Council is the most powerful and decision-making body of the United Nations. It has the main responsibility to maintain international peace and security.

(b) The Council is a contrast from the General Assembly, in respect of both its composition and the decision-making procedure.

(c) Unlike the Assembly, the membership of the Council is limited to 15 countries only, out of which five are permanent members. These five countries are China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA.

(d) The remaining ten members called nonpermanent members are elected by the General Assembly for a term of two years. They represent different geographical regions of the world like Asia, Africa, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe.

III. The Functions of General Assembly:

(i) The Assembly discusses problems brought to it, makes recommendations on peace and security questions, admits new members, and adopts the UN budget. On important matters it adopts resolutions with the support of two thirds majority. Procedural decisions require only a simple majority.

(ii) The Assembly meets in a regular session every year. It has convened 59 such sessions so far. The Assembly also meets, when need arises, in special sessions and emergency special sessions.

(iii) The General Assembly is sometimes called the world parliament. It can discuss any matter. It discusses matters, which includes peace and security questions, environment protection, economic development, problems of colonial administration, disarmament, refugees, population explosion, use of global commons like outer space and deep seaboard. It can only make recommendations.

(iv) As part of this function, the Assembly has adopted a number of important declarations containing principles of international cooperation in political, economic, social and other matters..

(v) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) the Declaration on Decolonisation (1960), Declaration on New International Economic Order (1974), Declaration on Rights of the Child (1989), Declaration on International Terrorism (1994) are only a few examples.

(vi) They are common goals desirable for governments to implement in their national policies and programmes. The Declaration are not binding on countries. Yet they carry great moral and political weight. Therefore, governments find it difficult to ignore them.

(vii) The Assembly has also adopted several laws like the covenant on civil, political, economic rights of individuals to be ensured throughout the world, the laws of exploitation of seas, laws prohibiting or controlling chemical and biological weapons, and so on.

(viii) But these laws are not like the laws of our Parliament, which are automatically binding on all of us. Whereas these international laws and conventions are legally binding only on those states that agree to comply with them.

(ix) Electoral Function: The Assembly, elects members from various organs. It appoints the Security General.

(x) It supervises the work of the economic and social council, the Security Council, the trusteeship Council, and other bodies.

(xi) The Assembly has the power to approve the budget of the United Nations and to apportion the amount among all the member countries.

IV. Powers and Functions of the Security Council: The security council takes most important decisions related to international peace and security.

(i) It was initially hoped that its small size could make it easy for the Council to take decisions on procedural matters by nine affirmative votes (simple majority). On substantive questions the nine affirmative votes should include concurring vote of the permanent members. In other words, the Council cannot take decisions of major significance if any one of the five permanent members casts a negative vote.

(ii) This special privilege of the permanent members is popularly known as the veto power. To abstain from voting in the Security Council is not veto. The veto provision has faced criticism from the very beginning. The veto power dilutes the principle of sovereign equality of member countries.

(iii) The power and functions of the Security Council are limited to the task of maintenance of international peace and security. In case a dispute arises between two or more countries the Council can make appropriate recommendations in the interest of peaceful settlement of the dispute. Nevertheless, these recommendations are not binding on the unwilling states.

Example: For instance,on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute,the Security Council resolutions are not legally binding on either India or Pakistan unless both countries willingly accept them.

(iv) The Council can use extraordinary power to deal with war or threats of war between countries. In such an event, the Council can determine who the aggressor is and can call for necessary steps to restore peace. These steps may include, at the discretion of the Council, economic sanctions like freezing of assets abroad, banning of exports and imports, or military action by land,sea or air.

(v) Notably, whenever,the Security Council takes such steps, are binding not only on the states directly involved in the war but also on all members of the United Nations. Once the Security Council takes a decision, it is the duty of the member countries to carry out decisions.

(vi) Imposing of the Sanctions: Obviously the Council can take such important decisions only with the agreement among the permanent members. In recent years, after the end of the cold war, the Council has frequently used its binding powers to deal with various problems of international peace and security.

(vii) The role of the Security Council in discharging its functions depends on the specific circumstances of each case and the existence of broad agreement among the five permanent members. It is important to note that the Security Council has imposed varying sets of economic and diplomatic sanctions against 25 countries so far.

(viii) These sanctions included cutting off diplomatic relations, stopping oil imports and exports, banning weapons supplies, freezing of assets abroad, etc. Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Africa were among the targets of these sanctions.

(ix) Collection of Military or troops of peacekeeping operations: Since no armed forces are placed under the UN to fight an aggressor even after five decades of the Charter's commitment to it.It has requested member countries to contribute towards such a force to take military action for restoring peace.The UN authorised military action to push North Korean forces from South Korea in 1950 and Iraq from Kuwait in 1990.

(x) Notability in a recent case, the Council refused to authorise the US to carry on war against Iraq. Therefore, the US war on Iraq (2003) was illegal.The Security Council sent soldiers of member countries to a troubled area,with the agreement of the governments concerned,to bring calm and normally.This largely successful activity is known as "peace keeping operations".