General Assembly: Press Release

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) elected Jorge Skinner‑Klee (Guatemala) as Chair on 5 June.

The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) elected Ion Jinga (Romania) as Chair on 5 June.

On 5 June, the United Nations General Assembly elected María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, Foreign Minister of Ecuador, President of its seventy-third session — only the fourth woman to hold that position in the world body’s history and the first since 2006. 

On its concluding day, the International Conference on the Question of Jerusalem focused on two issues:  challenges faced by Palestinian youth in East Jerusalem, including in the realms of education, employment and entrepreneurship; and the international community’s support for Palestinian rights in the city.

The fifth International Conference on the Question of Jerusalem opened in Rabat, Morocco, on 26 June with a call by King Mohamed VI of Morocco and Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee for a greater rallying of diplomatic efforts to secure binding international resolutions that protected the city and safeguarded its spiritual, cultural and legal character.

On the second day of the International Conference on the Question of Jerusalem participants discussed the political status of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the question of Jerusalem in international law and the obligations of Member States.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, will convene, with the support of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the International Conference on the Question of Jerusalem from 26 to 28 June in Rabat, Morocco.

Following is the statement by the General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People regarding the situation in Gaza:

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Forum on the Question of Palestine under the theme “70 Years after 1948 — Lessons to Achieve a Sustainable Peace” on 17 and 18 May in the Trusteeship Council Chamber of United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The Special Committee on decolonization will hold the 2018 Pacific Regional Seminar in Saint George’s, Grenada, from 9 to 11 May with a view to accelerating action in implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2011-2020).