Delving into issues ranging from deep sea mining and continental shelf limits to pollution, piracy and plastic waste floating at the surface, the General Assembly today adopted, without a vote, a resolution on sustainable fisheries and deferred taking action on a draft text on oceans and the Law of the Sea, as more than 30 speakers and the heads of two of the world’s ocean and sea authorities weighed in on the instruments governing those domains.
Amid ongoing formulation of a blueprint for the post-2015 development agenda, diverse positions on aid, climate finance and sustainable development funding and strategies for optimizing relevant proposals emerged during today’s debate in the General Assembly on the report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing.
The General Assembly would decide to establish an ad hoc committee to elaborate a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes, according to the terms of one of six draft resolutions approved today by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).
The General Assembly, acting on the recommendation of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), today adopted 25 resolutions — 14 requiring recorded votes — and four decisions on an array of subjects spanning information, decolonization, the Middle East, special political missions, atomic radiation, and outer space.
With its approval today of a draft resolution on the United Nations pension system, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) asked the General Assembly to stress the need for United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund managers to address all the weaknesses in the system identified by the Board of Auditors.
Twenty six donors today announced contributions, or their intention to contribute, to the 2015 budget of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as officials estimated that the chronically underfunded Agency would begin the year facing a $35 million deficit.
In a meeting held today to observe the twentieth anniversary of the International Year of the Family, representatives of the General Assembly said the role of the family was essential in promoting social stability and economic development and that families should be afforded the same rights, importance, and dignity as individuals.
The General Assembly would urge parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to facilitate the transfer of technology for the effective implementation of the Convention in accordance with its provisions, according to one of four draft resolutions approved today by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).
The General Assembly today, closely following the recommendation of its First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), where delegates had record-breaking participation and, as in past sessions, accorded priority attention to nuclear weapons, adopted 57 resolutions and six decisions, requiring 47 recorded votes in all, including on separate provisions of texts.
The General Assembly would call upon the United Nations system and the international community to assist Caribbean countries in their efforts to ensure the protection of the Caribbean Sea from degradation, according to one of four draft resolutions approved today by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).
