General Assembly

The United Nations Disarmament Commission reached an agreement on a provisional agenda for the work of its 2012 substantive session today, ending a three-day-long stalemate that some feared would jeopardize the body’s ability to continue its work.

Despite the inability of the Disarmament Commission by the close of day three of its session today to adopt a substantive agenda, it continued its general debate along with informal rounds of talks aimed at framing its item on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in language satisfactory to all.

Top United Nations officials pressed Governments, the private sector and civil society to take coordinated and consistent measures in combating human trafficking, as they gathered today for a General Assembly interactive dialogue on defeating a scourge that had trapped an estimated 2.4 million people worldwide.

Eager to begin its work in earnest today, the United Nations Disarmament Commission opened its general debate segment without agreement on the substantive aspects of its agenda, following two days of intensive discussion aimed at bridging positions and organizing priorities on a formulation acceptable to all.

The past six months had seen an active, responsive General Assembly that had been relevant in addressing many of the key global issues of concern to all, its President, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser (Qatar), said at Headquarters today, pledging a redoubling of efforts to achieve success on all remaining matters on the organ’s agenda in the remaining six months of its current session.

Following two weeks of protracted, closed-door discussions, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this evening concluded the first resumed part of its sixty-sixth session by approving a resolution that stressed the importance of promoting a culture of accountability in the United Nations Secretariat and called on the Secretary-General to improve his reporting on progress to that end.

Conjuring images of the potentially “monstrous” effects of global nuclear fallout, speakers at the opening of the 2012 substantive session of the United Nations Disarmament Commission stressed that, after a dozen fruitless consecutive sessions, the body could waste no more time remaining gripped by deadlock or mired in repeated iterations of national interests.

The Human Rights Committee concluded its 104th session today, with a discussion about how to transform the “unwieldy” process under which States updated Geneva-based treaty bodies on their adherence to international human rights instruments into a rational, predictable system that motivated them to submit fewer — and more timely — reports.

The Human Rights Committee today adopted its annual report to the General Assembly, deciding to include — as an annex — a request for additional resources to deal with a backlog of communications received under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, pending a revision of that document’s language.

The Human Rights Committee this afternoon examined the progress report of its Special Rapporteur for Follow-up on Concluding Observations, which provides a country-by-country update on correspondence with States parties between the Committee’s 103rd and 104th sessions on implementing the expert body’s recommendations on their compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.