General Assembly

The outer space environment was becoming increasingly “congested, contested and competitive” as States vied to benefit from space-based technologies, while cautioning that it must not become the next theatre of proliferation, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today as it took up its cluster on the disarmament aspects of outer space.

For African countries to continue to amass success stories towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals by the 2015 target date, the international community must deliver on commitments, building upon positive developments and promising prospects for economic growth, speakers said during the General Assembly’s joint debate today on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the decade to roll back malaria in developing countries, particularly on the continent.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved a draft resolution on the advancement of women and heard several presentations by United Nations experts today, as it continued its discussions on the protection and promotion of human rights.

A free and open global trading system could be a powerful engine for economic growth and poverty reduction - particularly in turbulent economic times, the representative from Canada said today, as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) took up macroeconomic policy questions.

Speakers today in the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) said any breach of the chemical and biological weapons ban was repugnant and the recent use of chemical weapons a graphic reminder of the very real threat and scale of the potential consequences of those weapons, insisting that no effort should be spared to completely eliminate them for the sake of all humankind.

At today’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) meeting, delegates from the “Group of 77” developing countries and China voiced serious concerns that the Secretariat had strayed from established procedures when adjusting spending for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research during the 2012-2013 budget cycle.

Generally broad agreement emerged today in the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) as it concluded its debate on the peaceful uses of outer space that space systems contributed significantly to the functioning of modern societies, but that there was a risk of a “sudden, possibly, irreversible deteriorating of the orbital environment” owing to a number of factors, not least, space debris, as well as the use of that domain for military purposes.

Marking its twentieth year of operation, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had become increasingly action-oriented in response to a steadily growing number of requests from Member States for engagement and assistance, the High Commissioner told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today.

Middle-income countries were vulnerable to being caught in a “middle-income trap”, whereby they risked losing their competitiveness to low-income countries while still lacking the technological edge to catch up to high-income ones, the representative of the Bahamas said as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) took up globalization and interdependence.

As delegations decried the impasse in the Conference on Disarmament, Pakistan’s representative said today that its “lacklustre performance” did not derive from the “myth” of organizational or procedural issues, but was instead a reflection of the external political environment, which underpinned the deadlock in nuclear disarmament — the Conference’s raison d’être — for more than 30 years.