The whole committee itself, referred to as the large body, is composed of three groups of 50 members each, where the first group is directly nominated by Bashar al-Assad's government. The second is directly nominated by the Syrian Opposition's High Negotiations Committee and the third includes figures of Syrian civil society, selected by the United Nations. The UN quota is picked from members from diverse religious, ethnic and geographical backgrounds, with nearly half of its members being women.[16][17][18][4][19]