General Assembly

During the Sixth Committee’s (Legal) final debate on the International Law Commission’s annual report, delegates urged the Geneva-based body to diligently study State practice and, where possible, arrive at international rules of customary law to rectify the divergent views on several pressing issues before the Commission.

There had been deliberate increases in Israeli attacks on Palestinian farmers during the olive-harvesting season, with some 8,000 trees uprooted, burned or destroyed this year alone, the Observer for Palestine told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today as it took up the question of permanent sovereignty of Arab peoples under occupation over their natural resources.

Forwarding 16 drafts to the General Assembly, the majority addressing nuclear weapons and the disarmament machinery, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today considered a range of texts that reflected shared and sometimes divergent positions on how best to spark progress across the wider international disarmament and non-proliferation agenda.

Completing their consideration of the annual reports on the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, General Assembly delegates today hailed the latter’s issuance of its first judgment, stressed the importance of full cooperation by States to ensure that Court’s further success and were divided on the relationship between the Court and the Security Council.

A comprehensive approach, based on a solid legal framework, was essential for addressing the “new and complex” challenge of racial, ethnic and xenophobic hatred promoted through the Internet, the United Nations top official on contemporary forms of racism told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today.

The three categories of high-ranking officials who were traditionally granted immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction should be expanded to include other senior representatives carrying out essential State functions, Sixth Committee (Legal) delegates said today, as the debate on the International Law Commission’s annual report continued.

Despite fewer people suffering chronic hunger and a drop in the proportion of the world’s population that was undernourished, gains in tackling hunger and food insecurity were “nowhere near good enough”, the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) was told today.

A raft of traditional texts were approved today by the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), with complementary and, in part, competing, provisions aimed at neutralizing the nuclear-weapon threat and forging agreement in the Conference on Disarmament for that purpose and, pending the total elimination of those weapons, casting a wider net of nuclear-weapon-free zones and putting in place interim measures to protect non-nuclear-armed States.

Secretariat officials told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today that the multibillion dollar renovation of the United Nations historic Headquarters complex was still on track despite the blow wielded by Hurricane Sandy that shuttered the doors of the New York City compound for three days last week.

Nuclear technology would continue to play an integral role in securing energy and promoting socioeconomic development, delegates said today as the General Assembly discussed the 2011 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and adopted a resolution reaffirming “strong support” for its indispensable role.