FORTY-THIRD VOLUME OF UNITED NATIONS YEARBOOK ISSUED
Press Release
PI/1036
FORTY-THIRD VOLUME OF UNITED NATIONS YEARBOOK ISSUED
19971028 With the publication of the forty-third volume of the Yearbook of the United Nations, a significant advance has been made in the elimination of the three-volume backlog resulting from the General Assembly instruction to the Department of Public Information (DPI) to concentrate on the production of current volumes. The 1,077-page reference book covers all major activities during 1989 of the United Nations and its family of organizations.Work is currently well under way on the final backlog edition (1990), as well as on the 1996 edition. The 1988 backlog edition was published in 1994. The backlog project is being financed by Kluwer Law International of The Hague, Netherlands, which publishes the Yearbook series for and on behalf of the United Nations.
As the primary comprehensive and authoritative publication on the work of the Organization, the Yearbook is widely used by diplomats, government officials, scholars, writers, journalists, teachers, students and others with a serious interest in international affairs who seek readily available information about the United Nations. Fully indexed, the Yearbook reproduces in their entirety the texts of all major General Assembly, Security Council and Economic and Social Council resolutions, and contains detailed information on reports and meetings of United Nations bodies.
The 1989 volume of the Yearbook, with a foreword by former Secretary- General Javier Perez de Cuellar, consists of 56 chapters presented in seven parts -- political and security questions, regional questions, economic and social questions, trusteeship and decolonization, legal questions, administrative and budgetary questions, and intergovernmental organizations related to the United Nations.
This volume records the momentous developments of 1989, including the transition to Namibia's independence and the continuing dismantling of the apartheid system in South Africa. United Nations efforts in this area culminated in the adoption by the General Assembly, at its sixteenth special session in 1989, of the Declaration on Apartheid and Its Destructive Consequences in South Africa, laying down, for the first time, internally agreed steps towards a negotiating climate and principles for a united, non-racial and democratic society.
This Yearbook also documents the efforts of the Organization in 1989 to assist Central American countries in their search for peace, including the
creation of the International Support and Verification Commission to promote compliance with agreements reached by the five Central American Presidents. It chronicles such events as the International Conference on Central American Refugees, which in May 1989 formulated a special plan of action; the establishment of new United Nations operations for Central America and for Nicaragua; and the successful conclusion of the United Nations-brokered negotiations on El Salvador.
Among the United Nations achievements reflected in this edition are the conclusion of a basic agreement on essential conditions for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Cambodia (then called Kampuchea), and the Comprehensive Plan of Action, adopted in June at the International Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees and setting out measures to deal with asylum-seekers in South-East Asia. The 1989 United Nations Yearbook also provides comprehensive coverage of a wide spectrum of other major political situations, including the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Afghanistan situation.
The 1989 Yearbook also deals with diverse topics relating to economic and social development, highlighting United Nations efforts to revitalize economic growth in developing countries, especially in Africa. In view of the persisting critical situation there, the General Assembly invited international financing and development bodies to consider the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation, adopted by the Economic Commission for Africa. The Assembly also proclaimed the period 1991-2000 as the Second Industrial Development Decade for Africa. In 1989, the United Nations addressed the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS and burgeoning illicit drug trafficking and use, both of which had grown to dangerous proportions.
The 1989 Yearbook further gives an overview of United Nations operational activities, describing the relief provided to mitigate the suffering of millions of refugees and displaced persons worldwide, as well as the response of the Organization to emergency situations and to natural disasters, including Hurricane Hugo, heavy floods, earthquakes, and the relentless scourge of drought and desertification in the Sudano-Sahel region and elsewhere.
With environmental issues continuing to claim increasing attention worldwide, the Yearbook provides information on United Nations agreements relating to the protection of the ozone layer and the disposal of hazardous wastes. Other accomplishments of the Organization in 1989, documented in the Yearbook, include the adoption and opening for signature of two new Conventions -- one on the rights of the child, and the other against the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries. A Second Optional Protocol to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed at abolishing the death penalty, was also adopted.
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United Nations legal issues are also detailed in the Yearbook. In 1989, the General Assembly declared 1990-1999 as the United Nations Decade of International Law, with the aim of promoting respect for international law and encouraging peaceful settlement of disputes.
These and other initiatives, as recounted in the forty-third volume of the Yearbook, reflect the growing role being assigned to the Organization on the world stage at the close of the 1980s.
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NOTE:The 1989 Yearbook (ISBN 90-411-0451-8; United Nations Publication Sales No. E.97.I.11), as well as other volumes of the Yearbook of the United Nations, are currently available in the United Nations Bookshop, Room GA-32, United Nations, New York, NY 10017, U.S.A., and the United Nations Bookshop, Door 40, Palais des Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland. It may also be obtained in North and South America from Kluwer Law International, 675 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A., and in all other countries from Kluwer Law International, P.O. Box 85889, 2508 CN The Hague, Netherlands. The retail price is $150.