General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

Amid growing criticism of inaction by the Security Council on the war in Ukraine, the General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution today aimed at holding the five permanent Council members accountable for their use of veto.

After three weeks of discussion, the Disarmament Commission concluded its 2022 substantive session today — the first since 2018 — with the approval by consensus of its draft report to the General Assembly as well as the reports of its subsidiary bodies.

Amidst concerns about transparency and working methods, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) approved, without a vote, a draft resolution forwarding the latest report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations for adoption by the General Assembly.

The General Assembly today adopted four texts, including a resolution approved by the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) that provides about $2.23 million in funding, known as revised estimates, for actions taken by the Human Rights Council during its thirty-third special session last year.

In a consensus text adopted today, the General Assembly welcomed the upcoming World Cup football championship in Qatar as the first such event to be held in the Middle East and encouraged the relevant authorities to exert every effort to ensure that the 2022 tournament will leave a lasting legacy for peace and development in the region.

Continuing its emergency special session today, the General Assembly took the extraordinary step of adopting a resolution that suspended the Russian Federation’s membership in the Human Rights Council, doing so in the wake of recently revealed images and testimonies of atrocities perpetrated against the civilian population of Ukraine.

Meeting after a three-year hiatus, the Disarmament Commission opened its 2022 substantive session today amid rising geopolitical tensions and concerns over deepening mistrust between some of the world’s largest military Powers.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today wrapped up the first part of its resumed seventy-sixth session by sending the General Assembly three resolutions and one decision, yet still not giving the Secretary-General guidance on human resources or resolving the Organization’s ongoing liquidity problems.

There can be no atonement if there is no repair, the keynote speaker during the General Assembly’s annual event commemorating the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade said today, as many speakers joined the growing calls for reparations to the descendants of human beings bought and sold as chattel for generations.