In the early 1960s wave of decolonization, December 1, 1962 saw continued UN General Assembly deliberation on the status of remaining colonial territories, part of a sustained diplomatic push by newly independent African and Caribbean nations to accelerate the end of European colonial rule worldwide, building on the landmark 1960 Declaration on decolonization.
The early 1960s were the high tide of global decolonization, and the UN General Assembly had become the primary stage where newly independent nations flexed diplomatic muscle they'd never possessed as colonies. Nations that had only just won sovereignty, including Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and others from the 'Year of Africa' in 1960, used their new UN votes to relentlessly pressure remaining colonial powers.
The 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples had declared that all peoples have a right to self-determination, and subsequent years saw committees formed specifically to monitor compliance and pressure holdout colonial administrations in places like Portuguese Africa and Southern Rhodesia.
This period fundamentally reshaped the UN's character, growing its membership from 51 founding states in 1945 to well over 100 by the mid-1960s, shifting voting blocs and forcing colonial powers like Britain, France, Portugal, and Belgium into a rearguard diplomatic action they would ultimately lose across most of Africa and the Caribbean within another decade or two.