Fourth Committee

In a brief organizational meeting today, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) approved its work programme for the current session, containing more than a dozen topics for consideration, including the effects of atomic radiation, questions relating to the University of Peace, and the granting of independence to Non-Self-Governing Territories and peoples.

Noel Nelson Messone, Permanent Representative of Gabon to the United Nations, was elected Chair of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) on 4 September.

Concluding its work for the General Assembly’s sixty-sixth session today, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) adopted a consensus resolution by which it endorsed the recommendations and conclusions of its Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations and urged Member States, the Secretariat as well as other United Nations entities to take all necessary steps for their implementation.

The General Assembly’s Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today elected Noel Nelson Messone (Gabon) as Chair for its sixty-seventh session.

Concluding its work for the session, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) recommended the expansion of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation to include those five Member States serving as observers since 2007, by one of 11 draft resolutions it approved today.

Both parties in the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict must summon the necessary courage to take bold decisions to achieve peace for all inhabitants of the Middle East, for “if the door to peace closes, it would be very hard to reopen”, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard today.

The opportunity for Israeli‑Palestinian peace was “slipping away” and all efforts must be exerted to achieve a final peace settlement, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard today as it began its consideration of the work of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) supported some of the most marginalized refugee communities in the world, the Fourth Committee (Special Committee and Decolonization) heard today during the conclusion of its debate on UNRWA, as attention remained focused on the Agency’s habitual, but no less troubling, budgetary constraints and the complex political and security setting in which it worked.

Now facing its third year with a “down to the wire at the last minute” funding gap for essential services, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was still $46 million short for its 2011 budget, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard today as it began its annual consideration of that Agency’s work.

Anti-personnel mines were “perverse”, as they were triggered by victims with the aim of killing or severing the victims for life, and did not distinguish between combatants and civilians, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard today during its consideration of mine action assistance.