General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

Although speakers in the Disarmament Commission continued to stress the urgent need for nuclear disarmament, some speakers during today’s debate, which concluded the formal exchange of views for the session, drew attention to the scourge of small arms and light weapons ‑‑ the equivalent of “weapons of mass destruction” in Africa ‑‑ while others emphasized the need to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

Saying it was aware of “significant flaws” in the United Nations Secretariat’s internal monitoring, inspection and accountability mechanisms, the General Assembly stressed, in a resolution it adopted today, the importance of promoting a culture of accountability, results-based management, enterprise risk management and internal controls at all levels.

Pointing to the “fresh and affirmative spirit of multilateralism” emerging in discussions on global disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, called on the Disarmament Commission this morning as it opened its 2010 substantive session to reach consensus on creating a nuclear-weapon-free world, a new Disarmament Decade and practical confidence-building measures in the field of conventional arms.

The United Nations expert body monitoring worldwide implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights concluded its annual three-week session at Headquarters in New York today, having taken up the compliance reports of Argentina, Mexico, New Zealand and Uzbekistan.

Representatives of non-governmental organizations, activists and others attending today’s United Nations Meeting of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People in Vienna reported on actions taken against the wall built by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and especially around the village of Bil’in, highlighting the importance of the July 2004 advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice regarding the wall.

The Human Rights Committee today continued its read-through of its draft “general comment” on article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ‑‑ dealing with the right to freedom of opinion and expression ‑‑ approving language for two more sections in the “first reading” draft of the 54-paragraph text.

At the conclusion of the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People today, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations called for recognition of the State of Palestine now that an ambitious programme to end the occupation in two years had been introduced.

The second plenary meeting of the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People heard a panel of experts assess in detail the Palestinian Authority Programme entitled “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the State” and address such themes as gender equality in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, economic independence and the role of civil society in building an independent State.

While atrocities perpetuated during the 400-year-long transatlantic slave trade were “grotesque” crimes against humanity never to be repeated, slavery and slave-like practices had emerged in the modern forms of racism, sex trafficking and forced labour, which must end if the future was to be rid of the legacy of bigotry, delegates in the General Assembly said today during a special meeting to commemorate the International Day of Remembrance for Victims.

The Peacebuilding Commission today adopted the conclusions of its fourth biannual review of the implementation of the Strategic Framework for Peacebuilding in Burundi, following an appeal by Burundi’s Minister of External Relations and International Cooperation for partners to redouble efforts to mobilize resources for the country’s elections in May –- the anticipated crowning moment in Burundi’s peace consolidation -- and to make permanent the results achieved so far.