General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly concluded the main part of its substantive session early this morning with the adoption a $5.16 billion budget for the United Nations 2010‑2011 biennium, and importantly, a resolution that maintains the current scale by which States are assessed dues to the Organization, reflecting a compromise between the need to review that formula and maintain a balanced approach to assessments.

Recognizing the numerous difficulties faced by survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the General Assembly today adopted a resolution requesting the Secretary-General to encourage relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes to provide assistance in the areas of education, medical care, skills training and microcredit programmes aimed at promoting self-sufficiency.

In a bid to boost recovery from the global financial, economic crisis and tackle entrenched policy challenges to long-term growth, trade and sustainable development, the Assembly laid the groundwork for consideration of those issues by unanimously adopting –- out of 38 development-related actions put forward by its Second Committee –- several resolutions and landmark texts on food security, legal rights for the poor, and principles governing humankind’s relationship with the earth.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today approved a draft that would have the Assembly reaffirm the Organization’s new internal justice system, which became effective on 1 July, and request the Secretary-General to provide information on how justice would be administered to non-staff personnel under the new system -- such as contractors, consultants, daily paid workers, personnel under service contracts and personnel under special service arrangements.

The General Assembly today adopted 56 resolutions and 9 decisions recommended by its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), acting with new-found consensus on several historically contentious texts, including those on the rights of the child, the right to food and the report of the Human Rights Council.

With the United Nations poised to spend $599 million on 27 special political missions in 2010, including two large missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, speakers in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today called for greater accuracy in budget projections, as well as greater clarity on the rationale used to decide the type, size and scope of each mission.

Acting without a vote on the recommendations of its Sixth (Legal) Committee, the General Assembly this morning adopted 15 resolutions and two decisions on issues ranging from international terrorism to the rule of law, as it also adopted a text on assistance to the Palestinian people and continued its consideration of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

Acting without a vote, the Sixth Committee (Legal) today approved a resolution to grant observer status in the work of the General Assembly for the 25‑member Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, while also deciding to request that the General Assembly consider how best the Council of Presidents of the General Assembly could contribute its unique expertise to the Organization’s work once a resolution on recommending observer status for the group was withdrawn.

Concluding its sixty-fourth session today, the Second Committee approved five draft resolutions on a range of agenda items, including a text by which the General Assembly would note with deep concern that the world financial and economic crisis had severely impacted international trade, with a particular effect on developing countries, resulting in lower fiscal revenues and balance-of-payment problems.

Recognizing the devastating impact of conflicts fuelledby the illicit diamond trade and the gross human rights violations that have been perpetrated in such conflicts, the General Assembly today adopted a consensus resolution reaffirming its strong support for the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which imposes strict requirements on rough diamond shipments to certify them as “conflict free”.