Fifty-ninth General Assembly

Third Committee

56^th Meeting* (AM)

THIRD COMMITTEE ELECTS REMAINING MEMBERS OF BUREAU FOR 60^TH SESSION

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) this morning concluded its deliberations for the fifty-ninth session of the General Assembly with the election of the remaining members of its bureau for the sixtieth session.

The Committee elected Pedro Cardoso (Brazil), from the Latin American and Caribbean Group, to serve as Rapporteur.  Also, Muhammad Anshor (Indonesia), from the Asian States, was elected to replace Rania Haj Ali (Syria), who had been elected on 13 June to serve as Vice-Chairperson. 

Mr. Cardoso and Mr. Anshor will now join the other members of the bureau for the sixtieth session, who were also elected on 13 June:  Chairman Francis K. Butagira (Uganda); and Vice-Chairpersons Eva Tomic (Slovenia) and Catarina Carvalho (Portugal).

Concerning the make-up of the Committee’s bureau, Uruguay’s representative, speaking on behalf of the Latin American and Caribbean Group, said the General Assembly regulations provided that the Main Committees elect their bureaux taking into account the principle of equitable geographical distribution and the competence of the candidates.  In the case of the Third Committee, there were no explicit procedure to assign the tasks of Vice-Chairmen and Rapporteur.

While in the other Committees, the principle of rotation was involved, she said the posts in the Third Committee were distributed based on the date that the candidates were presented.  As a result, some regional groups had rarely occupied the post of Rapporteur.  Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, had occupied the post of Rapporteur last year and would do so again this year because it had presented its candidates after the other regional groups.  She requested the Secretariat to present a concrete proposal, based on the system of rotation as in the other Main Committees, which would solve that problem.

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*     The 55^th Meeting was covered in Press Release GA/10355 of 13 June 2005.