General Assembly

Seven years after they gave the go-ahead for the massive, multi-billion-dollar renovation of the United Nations historic Headquarters building, delegates at the Fifth Committee (Budgetary and Administrative) today urged the Secretariat and managers of the Capital Master Plan to rein in cost overruns and add-ons that tallied nearly $400 million.

Hailing the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court as leading examples of ending impunity, delegates in the General Assembly today examined reports on recent achievements and elaborated on challenges ahead during a day-long debate.

Political consensus coalesced today in the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) around the long-held view that United Nations peacekeeping was not only vital for international stability but also for consolidating regional and national gains, aided by shared expectations and the pooling among missions of assets, technologies and resources.

Elections were fundamentally political rather than technical events, and, more importantly, they were not an end in themselves, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) heard today, as it resumed its general discussion on the promotion and protection of human rights.

After almost two decades, the Guide to Practice on “reservations to treaties” finally came before the Sixth Committee (Legal), as the debate began on the “second cluster” of topics from the International Law Commission’s 2011 report.

Israel’s practices were not random but systematic, in line with a deliberate policy to force the displacement of Palestinians from their towns and villages and take control of their land, the Observer of the State of Palestine said today to the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

Light weapons were “only light in name” and contributed to problems ranging from exploitation of natural resources, to child soldiers, piracy, terrorism and trans-border organized crime, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today in nearly 70 interventions, as thematic debates concluded on conventional weapons, other disarmament measures, and regional disarmament and security.

The General Assembly today elected 18 members of the Economic and Social Council to serve three-year terms beginning 1 January 2014.

United Nations Peacekeeping missions today were set in increasingly demanding and often perilous contexts, with operational and policy challenges that could only be addressed through collective action with an “international character”, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) heard today as it continued its comprehensive review of peacekeeping operations in all its aspects.

“The Third Committee [Social, Humanitarian and Cultural] does not function in a vacuum,” the President of the General Assembly said today, emphasizing that the issues on agendas of the Main Committees were all inter-related.