Resolutions of the General Assembly are sometimes referred to as soft law, since they cannot be classified as full-fledged rules of international law such as international custom, treaties, or general principles of law. However, resolutions meet, to a great extent, the criteria to be termed as law.

Soft law refers to guidelines of behavior such as those provided by treaties not yet in force, resolutions of the United Nations, or international conferences, that are not binding in themselves but are more than mere statements of political aspiration (they fall into a legal/political limbo between these two states). Soft law contrasts with hard law, i.e. those legal obligations, found either in treaties or in customary international law that are binding in and of themselves.