General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

Taking note of the new Constitution of the Dominican Republic and impressed by “the level of humility the delegation had shown in acknowledging the problems” as it worked towards stronger human rights protections, the Human Rights Committee today expressed concern about abuses in law enforcement and racial discrimination towards migrants in that country.

As the United Nations top management official this afternoon presented the Secretary-General’s progress report on creating an accountability system within the Secretariat to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), some delegates criticized it for not giving enough evidence to support its claims of success.

There was a real will to strengthen democratic institutions in the Dominican Republic so that they fully guaranteed the rule of law and genuinely defended fundamental human rights and freedoms, Héctor Virgilio Alcántara Mejía, Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations, told the Human Rights Committee today, as it opened its 104th session.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today weighed in on the Secretary-General’s proposal to restructure the pension schemes for incoming judges of three United Nations courts — a move that would save the Organization nearly $10 million in the next three decades.

Proposals to change the methodology to determine the scale of Member States’ assessments to the United Nations, concerns over the delay in implementing the Capital Master Plan and whether to make public reports of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) dominated the discussions of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today, as it opened its resumed session.

Calling for urgent and concerted action to end months of violence in Syria, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said the international community had failed the Syrian people, particularly the many innocent civilians trapped in the war-wracked cities Homs and Hama, where the Government was stepping up its systematic “atrocious assault”.

In a message to the first meeting of the 2012 substantive session of the Special Committee on Decolonization, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today for “constructive involvement” between the Committee, the administering Powers and the Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The General Assembly today adopted a resolution on reform of the human rights treaty body system and elected three judges from a pool of six candidates to the United Nations Appeals Tribunal for terms of seven years, beginning 1 July.

Praise and criticism over perceived triumphs and failures peppered demands for clearly defined mandates, sustained funding, entry and exit strategies and strict compliance with core principles as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations concluded its general debate today.

The overall structure and systems on which United Nations peacekeeping relied were “not always optimal” and it was a common duty among all stakeholders — Headquarters, regional organizations, United Nations agencies and Member States alike — to determine which components could be improved in the coming years, Under-Secretary-General Hervé Ladsous told the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations today.