By one of three draft resolutions the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved today, the General Assembly would welcome the peaceful and competitive conduct of the elections held in Myanmar on 8 November 2015, but express serious concern over political disenfranchisement and the disqualification of candidates from the Rohingya community and religious and ethnic minorities.
The General Assembly today elected the Secretary-General’s proposed candidate, Filippo Grandi (Italy), as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), while filling vacancies in the United Nations tribunals that address internal grievances and disciplinary matters.
Delegates at today’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) meeting aired their concerns on the financing of the proposed renovation of the historic Palais des Nations in Geneva – estimated to tally nearly $1 billion - and the Secretariat’s first year of work in carrying out a comprehensive information and communications technology strategy.
The General Assembly today adopted, by a recorded vote of 99 in favour to none against, with 10 abstentions (Bolivia, Chad, Cuba, Nicaragua, Russian Federation, Sudan, Syria, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela and Zimbabwe), a resolution on the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today rejected one text and sent another six draft resolutions to the General Assembly, among them a draft that would have the world body urge States not to return a person to another State if he or she faced risks of being subjected to torture and to ensure that border control operations and reception centres fully complied with human rights.
Concluding its work for the main part of the General Assembly’s seventieth session today, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) approved nine draft resolutions — all by recorded vote — relating to Palestine refugees and Israeli practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Prior to approving without a vote two draft resolutions, the Sixth Committee (Legal) noted improvements in relations with the host country and stressed the key role of the General Assembly in the revitalization of the United Nations, as they considered reports on both matters.
As the Human Rights Council was moving into its tenth year, its record had testified to a high level of responsiveness while it continued to be actively engaged in cases of urgent and chronic violations, that body’s president told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today while presenting its annual report during an interactive dialogue the preceded a general discussion.
Challenges to the international community’s human rights mainstay were debated today as the General Assembly took up the reports of the Human Rights Council’s sessions this year. Hearing from just over two dozen speakers expressing fellow feeling with citizens of Paris, Beirut and Baghdad in the wake of devastating terrorist attacks in those cities, delegates discussed the way forward for advancing human rights around the world for every individual.
Prior to approving without a vote the request for Observer status in the General Assembly for the Union for the Mediterranean, the Sixth Committee (Legal) today heard oral reports of its three working groups, noting once again that delegations had been unable to conclude a draft comprehensive convention on measures to eliminate international terrorism, a situation the Chair lamented.
