General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) met this morning to consider whether to impose limits on speaking time during its discussions, set one-time deadlines for submitting draft proposals, and whether to eliminate its general debate altogether, among other ideas proposed for improving its working methods.

Against a backdrop of the widely-held view that more than 20,000 nuclear weapons still existed in the world today, legally binding negative security assurances, or promises that nuclear-weapon States would never use those weapons against those countries that did not have them, and a verifiable and irreversible nuclear weapons convention were sure ways to motivate the “marathon towards global zero”, the Disarmament Committee heard today in the course of its debate.

As part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen the accountability and transparency of United Nations activities, delegates to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today expressed strong support for the work of the two crucial oversight bodies — the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), and the Independent Audit Advisory Committee — as it took up their wide-ranging annual reports.

Pressed to conclude their work over the next two years, top officials from the United Nations war crimes Tribunals investigating atrocities committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the Balkan wars of the 1990s, today appealed to the General Assembly for more time, resources and, especially, incentives to help attract and hold onto qualified staff.

Continuing its general debate on decolonization issues today, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) focused its attention on the question of Western Sahara, as petitioners appealed for resolute action on the part of the United Nations and the wider international community to effectively tackle a raft of injustices they believed gripped the region, including terrorism, slavery, natural resource exploitation and human rights abuses.

From cybercrime and trafficking in cultural property to poaching on the high seas, speakers in the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today drew attention to new forms of transnational crimes that warrant an international response.

While deliberations continued on nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, sight must not be lost of the really immense problem of small arms and light weapons in parts of the world, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today, as it continued its annual general debate.

As it took a look ahead at the Organization’s objectives for the years 2012 and 2013, the Fifth Committee today praised the strategic plan shaped by Secretariat officials, while affirming the General Assembly’s key role in setting the priorities.

Calling attention to the failure of the United Nations and the international community to preserve the human rights of Saharawis, petitioners for Western Sahara called for a resolution to the “last decolonization process in Africa”, as the Fourth Committee continued its consideration of remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories this afternoon.

The struggle against organized crime, corruption and trafficking in illicit drugs and human beings is too big for any one country to tackle alone, Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told the Third Committee today, as he appealed to Member States for sustainable funding to enable his Office to fulfil its mandates.