Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

General Assembly: No name

HR/CT/751

Human Rights Committee Adopts Annual Report to General Assembly Covering Results of October 2011 Geneva Session, Current New York Session

The Human Rights Committee today adopted its annual report to the General Assembly, deciding to include — as an annex — a request for additional resources to deal with a backlog of communications received under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, pending a revision of that document’s language.
HR/CT/750

Human Rights Committee Examines Progress Report of Special Rapporteur for Follow-up on Concluding Observations

The Human Rights Committee this afternoon examined the progress report of its Special Rapporteur for Follow-up on Concluding Observations, which provides a country-by-country update on correspondence with States parties between the Committee’s 103rd and 104th sessions on implementing the expert body’s recommendations on their compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
GA/PAL/1226

United Nations International Meeting on Question of Palestine to Consider Implications of Palestinian Political Prisoners, in Geneva, 3-4 April

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine on 3 and 4 April at the United Nations Office at Geneva. The theme of the Meeting is “The question of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention facilities: legal and political implications”.
GA/PAL/1225

Only Concrete Intervention to Prevent Israel from Blocking Two-State Solution Will Preserve Prospects for Peace, Palestinian Rights Committee Told

Without serious, concrete intervention by year’s end to stop Israel’s policies and strategies to systematically and deliberately destroy the two-State solution, prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians would be ruined, a top Palestinian peace negotiator today told the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
GA/11217

Speakers Urge Vigilance against Lingering Racism as General Assembly Observes International Day to Remember Transatlantic Slave Trade’s Victims

Decrying the “hideous mechanics” of a trade that once spanned the Atlantic Ocean, senior United Nations and Government officials today marked the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade by urging vigilance against lingering racism and calling for action to combat modern-day forms of slavery and exploitation.
HR/CT/748

Human Rights Committee Continues Discussion of Working Methods, Adopts Paper on Relationship with Non-Governmental Organizations

The Human Rights Committee continued discussion of its working methods today, adopting a paper on its relationship with non-governmental organizations. Prior to the adoption, the Committee carried out a paragraph-by-paragraph review of the document, which had been drafted by Cornelius Flinterman, expert from the Netherlands, and Iulia Antoanella Motoc, expert from Romania.
HR/CT/747

Human Rights Committee Discusses Working Methods

The Human Rights Committee met today to consider its working methods, including proposals to name a case manager, add a second working group on communications, and draw up a master calendar.
GA/11216

Cultural Diversity, Mutual Understanding Formed Bedrock of United Nations; Return to Such Principles Vital for World Torn by Extremism, Fear, General Assembly Told

Cultural diversity, freedom of thought and mutual understanding formed the bedrock on which the United Nations had been built, and returning to those principles was vital in a world increasingly characterized by extremism and an entrenched fear of the “other”, the General Assembly was told today, as senior Government officials gathered for a thematic debate on fostering cross-cultural understanding.