Special Committee: Hungary (1956)

Following the USSR’s intervention in Hungary in 1956, the SC (referencing the UFP resolution) requested the convening of an emergency special session of the GA on “the situation in Hungary” (S/RES/120). In the subsequent 2nd emergency special session (4–10 November 1956) the GA adopted five resolutions, which included recommendations for the Secretary-General to dispatch representatives and to further investigate the situation (A/RES/1004 (ES-II); A/RES/1005 (ES-II)). The final resolution in the emergency special session recommended that the matter be taken forward as an agenda item in the 11th regular session (A/RES/1008 (ES-II)).

In a resolution passed during the regular session on 21 November 1956, the GA took note of the Charter obligations and the principles of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (to which Hungary and the USSR were parties), as well as “reports of forcible deportation” (A/RES/1127(XI)). The GA reiterated the need for “prompt compliance” with its previous calls for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Hungary, as well as for the “dispatch of observers” (ibid., para. 1); and (in subsequent resolutions) called for the Government of Hungary to permit observers to enter its territory (A/RES/1128(XI); A/RES/1130(XI); A/RES/1131(XI)). On 11 December 1956, GA resolution 1132(XI) built on the previous calls for observers by establishing a Special Committee staffed by representatives of Australia, Ceylon, Denmark, Tunisia and Uruguay, and mandated to “investigate, and to establish and maintain direct observation in Hungary and elsewhere, taking testimony, collecting evidence and receiving information” and to report findings to the GA (A/RES/1132(XI), para. 1).

The Committee was not ultimately given access to Hungarian territory,¹ and based its findings on a series of hearings conducted in the spring of 1957 in international locations, in which Hungarian refugees, opposition figures and other third parties provided information.² It released its report (A/3592) on 20 June 1957.

The Hungary Special Committee is retrospectively considered analogous to an early form of COI. It was the first time that a UN body mandated a commission to investigate a specific conflict.