World Assembly Secretariat
 | |
| Formation | 01 April 2008 |
|---|---|
| Legal status | Active |
| Headquarters | WA Headquarters |
Head | Secretary-General Held In Commission |
The World Assembly Secretariat, more commonly known as the Secretariat, is the executive and administrative arm of the World Assembly, the voluntary world governing body and geopolitical organisation. The Secretary-General is the nominal head of the Secretariat, however the role has been held in commission since the foundation of the organisation.
The Secretariat as a civil service is responsible for executing the decisions of the General Assembly, whether that is in the name of the GA itself, or through one of the many agencies or committees it has the power to create. The Secretariat staffs all WA agencies and committees, including the Compliance Commission, the body that ensures all member states are in compliance with legislation passed by the body.
The Secretariat is also responsible for keeping order and decorum in both chambers of the World Assembly, as well as for processing requests to both join and leave the international body. The Secretariat also acts as the final arbiters for any disputes over the legality of proposed resolutions; in the General Assembly, they have delegated this task to a sub-committee called the General Assembly Secretariat.
History[edit | edit source]
The Secretariat was established on the same date as the original United Nations, with the same mandate and duties that it currently holds in the World Assembly. When the UN was disestablished and the WA created, the Secretariat as a whole was kept and transferred over to the new body. Members of the Secretariat who were deployed in several UN agencies at the time were recalled to headquarters; many of these were deployed to newly created WA agencies when the need arose.
A common criticism of the Secretariat in both its UN and WA iterations was that, while they were efficient at dealing with breaches of decorum and keeping order in the chambers of the body, their process of dealing with challenges to the legality of proposed resolution was cumbersome, inefficient, and lacked cohesion with previous decisions made. In 2016, the Secretariat made an attempt to rectify this by establishing a sub-committee in the General Assembly called the General Assembly Secretariat.
Secretary-General[edit | edit source]
The Secretariat is nominally led by a Secretary-General, however since the formation of the World Assembly the position has been vacant. Instead, the duties of the role have been filed by the Secretariat as a whole. The role is therefore considered to be held in commission.
In 2016, the nation of Caelapes claimed that a member of their delegation was the rightful Secretary-General, however the claims went ignored by the Secretariat; to date no individual has served as Secretary-General of the World Assembly.
General Assembly Secretariat[edit | edit source]
The General Assembly Secretariat, also called the GA Secretariat, is a sub-committee of the Secretariat proper created in 2016 to deal with the ever-growing number of legality challenges that occurred during the debates and drafting of proposed resolutions. The body holds no further powers of the Secretariat and is not responsible for keeping order in the General Assembly, nor regulating order; they are essentially the GA's rules committee.
Composition[edit | edit source]
Six member states currently sit on the General Assembly Secretariat; originally chosen by the Secretariat themselves, when a vacancy occurs, the GA Secretariat fills it themselves. Those member states are:
Former members[edit | edit source]
Reform[edit | edit source]
Further delegation of Secretariat powers, as well as installing someone in the role of Secretary-General have been frequent rallying calls in reform of the Secretariat. While the Secretariat did established the GA Secretariat to deal with legality of legislation in the General Assembly, they have indicated no further delegation of powers is on the table,
There have also been calls for the Secretariat to create a similar body to the GA Secretariat in the Security Council, however no progress has been made on this.