General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

At today’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) meeting, delegates from the “Group of 77” developing countries and China voiced serious concerns that the Secretariat had strayed from established procedures when adjusting spending for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research during the 2012-2013 budget cycle.

Generally broad agreement emerged today in the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) as it concluded its debate on the peaceful uses of outer space that space systems contributed significantly to the functioning of modern societies, but that there was a risk of a “sudden, possibly, irreversible deteriorating of the orbital environment” owing to a number of factors, not least, space debris, as well as the use of that domain for military purposes.

Marking its twentieth year of operation, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had become increasingly action-oriented in response to a steadily growing number of requests from Member States for engagement and assistance, the High Commissioner told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today.

Middle-income countries were vulnerable to being caught in a “middle-income trap”, whereby they risked losing their competitiveness to low-income countries while still lacking the technological edge to catch up to high-income ones, the representative of the Bahamas said as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) took up globalization and interdependence.

As delegations decried the impasse in the Conference on Disarmament, Pakistan’s representative said today that its “lacklustre performance” did not derive from the “myth” of organizational or procedural issues, but was instead a reflection of the external political environment, which underpinned the deadlock in nuclear disarmament — the Conference’s raison d’être — for more than 30 years.

By creating synergy between Member States, the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space would take the lead role in stimulating the advancement of space science and technology for the benefit of all humankind, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard today, as it began its annual deliberations on the peaceful uses of outer space.

United Nations standards for the treatment of prisoners were outdated and required revision in the areas of solitary confinement and investigation, the Special Rapporteur on torture said today, as the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) began its discussion on human rights.

The future form of the draft articles on transboundary harm from hazardous activities, the draft principles on allocation of loss in the case of such harm, and the draft articles on the law of transboundary aquifers remained in question as the Sixth Committee (Legal) took up those matters today.

Unless concerted efforts were taken to close the digital divide, many developing countries could miss economic opportunities, the representative of Nigeria said today as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) took up information and communications technology.

The world risked falling into a “globalization of indifference” and must act with one voice to ban all mass destruction weapons, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today at the conclusion of its thematic debate on nuclear weapons, which over the course of four days had been characterized by a mix of frustration and cautious optimism.