section_path: Subsidiary organs/Committees/Main committees
section_name: Main committees
paragraph_text: Main committees
  
  The main committees are ordinally numbered, 1–6:
  
  The roles of many of the main committees have changed over time. Until the late 1970s, the First Committee was the Political and Security Committee and there was also a sufficient number of additional "political" matters that an additional, unnumbered main committee, called the Special Political Committee, also sat. The Fourth Committee formerly handled Trusteeship and Decolonization matters. With the decreasing number of such matters to be addressed as the trust territories attained independence and the decolonization movement progressed, the functions of the Special Political Committee were merged into the Fourth Committee during the 1990s.
  
  Each main committee consists of all the members of the General Assembly. Each elects a chairman, three vice chairmen, and a rapporteur at the outset of each regular General Assembly session.