General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly today adopted a resolution encouraging relevant stakeholders to strengthen their efforts to promote peace, human rights, democracy, respect for religious and cultural diversity, and justice through education.

Applauding the start of construction last month of a new facility for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in the United Republic of Tanzania, Stephen Cutts, Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of Central Support Services, Department of Management, told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) “this is a momentous achievement in the project, and is the result of successfully meeting all planned milestones due to date”.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the first part of its resumed sixty-ninth session today with a review of its 2015 work programme and organization of work, the programme budget for the biennium 2014-2015 on programme criticality of safety and security, and of the role of the Joint Inspection Unit.

Covering diverse ground, delegates in the General Assembly today adopted two consensus resolutions by which they first addressed global geospacial information management, and then commemorated the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, a historic event that had brought “untold sorrow” to humanity.

Concluding its annual session today, the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on Strengthening the Role of the Organization adopted its 2015 draft report and forwarded its recommendations to the General Assembly.

Citing growing cooperation among all stakeholders concerned to eradicate colonialism across the globe, a senior United Nations political official this morning called for innovative, practical ways to address the issue of self-government, as the Special Committee on Decolonization opened its 2015 session.

The Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization today elected by acclamation Nadia Kalb (Austria) of the Western European and Other States Group for third Vice-Chair of that body’s bureau.

Continuing its 2015 session today, the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations tackled a plethora of peacekeeping concerns from the use of new technology and civilian protection mandates to pre-deployment planning and training to troop reimbursement rates.

Concluding the general debate for the session, speakers at the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization emphasized the urgency of revitalizing both the United Nations and the Special Committee itself through real political will and by fostering substantive deliberations on key agenda items.

The Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization opened its 2015 session today with delegations debating questions related to economic sanctions, as well as institutional reform.