General Assembly

The General Assembly met today to fill vacancies on administrative and legal bodies of the United Nations, including by voting to elect members of the International Law Commission. Voting by way of secret ballot, the Assembly elected a total of 34 members of the International Law Commission — a body devoted to the promotion of the development and codification of international law — to serve five‑year terms of office beginning on 1 January 2012.

Political engagement would be a key component for building peace in the Central African Republic, the top United Nations official in that country said this morning as the Peacebuilding Commission configuration dealing with that country met to adopt the second review of the Strategic Framework for Peacebuilding in the Central African Republic.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today approved a draft resolution that would have the General Assembly adopt a new, third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child establishing a communications procedure, which would allow the Committee overseeing the Convention’s implementation to receive and examine individual complaints from children and to organize country visits to investigate cases of grave and systematic violations of children’s rights.

A senior official in the Department of Management unveiled before the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon the first phase of efforts to create a comprehensive emergency management framework, part of the major push to make the Organization’s New York Headquarters better able to cope with man-made threats and natural hazards.

Ending the current session of its work, the General Assembly’s Sixth Committee (Legal) approved ten draft resolutions today, including one which recommends observer status in the Assembly for the West African Economic and Monetary Union, an organization credited with fostering economic integration in its region.

As deterrents of war crimes and guards against the “baser” aspects of human nature, the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia had had a far‑reaching impact over the course of their lifespan, said General Assembly delegates in a joint debate today.

Concluding its work for the session, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) recommended the expansion of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation to include those five Member States serving as observers since 2007, by one of 11 draft resolutions it approved today.

Acting by consensus, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today approved a draft resolution that would have the Assembly condemn all forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including through intimidation. Tabling the resolution — one of five draft texts approved by the Committee — Denmark’s delegate said it represented the value the international community placed on human dignity.

More than 10 years after the Monterrey Consensus was adopted, most countries remained well short of allocating 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP) to official development assistance (ODA), and sharp reductions planned in response to the global economic and financial crisis made for a bleak forecast of future growth in foreign aid, the President of the Economic and Social Council told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today.

The Organization’s ongoing efforts to shift to international accounting standards has been set back by delays in the implementation of its enterprise resources planning system, known as Umoja, Secretariat officials told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today.