GENERAL COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS PEACEBUILDING COMMISSION, HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL BE ALLOCATED TO RESPECTIVE MAIN COMMITTEES FOR DEBATE

Sixty-second General Assembly

General Committee

3^rd Meeting (PM)

GENERAL COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS PEACEBUILDING COMMISSION, HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

BE ALLOCATED TO RESPECTIVE MAIN COMMITTEES FOR DEBATE

The General Committee today recommended that the General Assembly allocate the annual reports of the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council to its Fifth (Administrative and Budgetary) and Third (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) Committees, respectively.

Acting at the request of Chairman of the Peacebuilding Commission Yukio Takasu, contained in a letter to the President of the General Assembly (document A/62/493), the Committee decided to allocate the Commission’s inaugural report to the Fifth Committee “for the sole purpose of considering the question of financing field missions”.  The year-old Peacebuilding Commission was established to prevent post-conflict countries from sliding back into war and the first two countries on its agenda are Burundi and Sierra Leone.  The General Assembly had considered the Commission’s inaugural report on 10 October.

Next, the Committee recommended to the Assembly that the report of the Human Rights Council be allocated to the Third Committee, following a debate about whether doing so would constitute a procedural precedent, and a brief suspension for consultation among concerned delegations.

The Human Rights Council, like the Peacebuilding Commission, was created in response to decisions taken by world leaders at the Assembly’s 2005 World Summit.

Speaking today were representatives of Uruguay, United Kingdom, Egypt, Finland, Iceland, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, United States, Sudan, Gambia and Jamaica.

The General Committee will reconvene at a time and date to be announced.

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For information media • not an official record