General Assembly

“We come together at a critical juncture,” said the incoming General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, as he opened the 193‑member body’s sixty-sixth session with a call to action on the United Nations to rethink the way it did business in the wake of ongoing global economic turmoil, popular protests that were upending once-stable Governments and the seemingly unending raft of natural hazards and man-made disasters.

Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser was elected President of the sixty-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly on 22 June 2011. A veteran diplomat, Mr. Al-Nasser has contributed to advancing the multilateral agenda in the realms of peace and security, sustainable development and South-South cooperation over a career spanning nearly four decades.

The General Assembly’s incoming President, in his first Headquarters press conference this afternoon, said the sixty-sixth session would focus on the priority theme of mediation.

While commending Member States for making headway on the major themes on the agenda of the General Assembly’s sixty-fifth session dealing with poverty reduction, global governance, a green economy and sustainable development, Joseph Deiss, the world body’s outgoing President today warned “our commitment in the name of the values of the United Nations has sometimes been too weak or too late”.

“Achieving the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities is more than possible, it is within reach and it is a necessity,” the Chair of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities declared today. As the Conference concluded its three-day fourth session, Chair Mårten Grunditz of Sweden emphasized that all the world’s people would “lose out” if the rights of persons with disabilities were not realized.

The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) met this morning to fill vacant positions on its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) met this morning to elect the remainder of its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

Amid a commemoration ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001, the President of the General Assembly today called on Member States to work for the swift conclusion of a draft general convention on terrorism during the world body’s upcoming sixty-sixth session.

By raising the voices of persons with disabilities to the highest levels of Government and decision-making, their participation in political and public life — a critical human right in itself — also formed the bedrock for many other rights, participants in the Fourth Conference of States Parties to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said today.

In the past year, the General Assembly had made important contributions to the mobilization of support for the Millennium Development Goals, the green economy and sustainable development, as well as the role of the United Nations in global governance, Joseph Deiss (Switzerland), outgoing Assembly President, said at his final Headquarters press conference today.