Presenting reports on such topics as truth and redress, child migrants, enforced disappearances and albinism, United Nations-appointed experts called for accountability for human rights violations as the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) continued its interactive dialogues today.
Inclusion and equal participation in systems that provide law and justice — for all individuals at the national level and all States at the international one — is crucial to upholding the rule of law, speakers stressed in the Sixth Committee (Legal) today, as it concluded its debate on that principle against the backdrop of a challenging geopolitical context.
Major world Powers all tacitly agree to allow starvation to be a geopolitical weapon, an independent expert told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, citing conflict as the leading driver of hunger and malnutrition, as materialized in the looming famine in Gaza.
While artificial intelligence (AI) and other innovations hold endless promise for driving prosperity and growth, the international community must urgently address the critical and widening digital gap between developed and developing countries, senior United Nations officials and Member States told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today as it took up information and communications technologies (ICTs) for sustainable development as well as globalization and interdependence.
“It is imperative to put an immediate end to continued and evolving nuclear weapons-sharing arrangements and extended deterrence that in fact is a new nuclear-arms race,” Indonesia’s delegate, speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, told the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today, in its thematic debate on nuclear weapons.
Concluding its general debate on decolonization, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today approved 22 draft resolutions, one decision and an amendment, with many delegates voicing concern over the procedural aspects and language of one of the resolutions.
Along with visits from the President of the General Assembly and the Deputy Secretary-General, Sixth Committee delegates took up the Secretary-General’s report, “Strengthening and Coordinating Rule of Law Activities” today, as speakers discussed the rule of law at the national and international levels, with some underscoring the importance of equal participation and access to justice and others offering national best practices in tackling corruption and ensuring transparency.
Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today welcomed the imminent inauguration of the newly renovated historic Africa Hall at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa as well as progress on renovations at the North Building at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), expected to be the first net-zero emissions building in the United Nations system.
As myriad global crises spark alarming levels of poverty, hunger and malnutrition, unprecedented investments are needed to reverse this trend so as to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), speakers told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) as it took up poverty eradication, agriculture development, food security and nutrition.
The present era is witnessing an unprecedented threat to peace, accompanied by a weakening and, in some instances, a loss of the very concept of peace itself, the Holy See’s delegate told the First Committee, which concluded its general debate today.
