In October 1963, in light of the alleged persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese Government earlier in the year, the GA established an FFM for South Vietnam. The matter had been on the GA’s agenda since the previous month, under the agenda item “The violation of human rights in South Viet-Nam”. While a draft resolution on the matter was initially put forward, on 4 October 1963, the Head of the Special Mission of the Republic of Vietnam addressed a letter to the President of the General Assembly conveying the invitation of the Government to have the representatives of several Member States visit the country “in order that they may find out for themselves the true situation regarding the relations between the Government and the Vietnamese Buddhist community” (A/PV.1232, para. 93).1 The Secretary-General was authorized at the GA’s 1234th plenary meeting (A/PV.1234, paras. 82–83) to act on this invitation, and did so by appointing representatives from Afghanistan (selected as Chair), Brazil, Ceylon, Costa Rica, Dahomey (Benin), Morocco and Nepal to the FFM at the 1239th meeting (A/PV.1239, paras. 170–174). As a result, unlike other subsidiary bodies created by the GA, this FFM was not authorized by a GA resolution, but came as the result of an invitation of the Government of Vietnam, and the simple approval of the GA for the Secretary-General to act on the invitation.
The mission deployed swiftly and published its report on 7 December 1963 (A/5630), two months after its establishment. In November 1963, the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam was overthrown, which challenged follow-on action on the mission’s report.
There was no concurrent action by the SC on these issues within South Vietnam at the time.