General Assembly

The United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty — the most important initiative ever within this organization in the field of arms regulation — opens today at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Scheduled to run through 27 July, the Conference, the first of its kind, aims to elaborate a legally binding instrument on the highest possible common international standards for the transfer of conventional arms.

Culminating its third biennial review of the 2006 United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the General Assembly today unanimously adopted a resolution renewing its unwavering commitment to strengthening international cooperation to prevent and combat all forms of the scourge, and emphasizing the need to promote worldwide solidarity in support of the victims of terrorist acts.

Calling for coordinated action and results, the President of the General Assembly today urged Member States to accelerate implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the wide-ranging framework adopted in 2006 to defeat what delegations referred to as a “hydra-headed scourge”.

States Parties to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women today elected by secret ballot 11 members of its monitoring body to replace those whose four-year terms are set to expire at year’s end.

With illegal drugs, corruption and organized crime robbing families and communities of resources that could be used for health care, education and food security, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged global action to remove those obstacles – and the violence and misery they fuelled - from the path to a world of security, development and prosperity for all.

The Special Committee on Decolonization concluded its 2012 substantive session today with the adoption by consensus of two draft resolutions on the questions of Tokelau and New Caledonia, and with its Chair stressing it must make the process of decolonization pragmatic and useful for the 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories under its purview.

The Special Committee on Decolonization continued its 2012 substantive session today with the approval, without a vote, of a draft resolution containing its report on decisions concerning organizational matters, as well as the report of the Pacific Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, held in Quito from 30 May to 1 June 2012.

The General Assembly today, acting on the recommendations of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), adopted a peacekeeping budget of just more than $7 billion for the period 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013.

The 24-member Committee that monitors implementation of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories approved by consensus today an omnibus draft resolution on the questions of American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Guam, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands and United States Virgin Islands.

The Special Committee on Decolonization today approved three draft resolutions dealing with various aspects of its work, as it continued its session at Headquarters.