General Assembly

The General Assembly today returned to the long-standing issue of Security Council reform as it opened its annual debate, looking to end the deadlock among Member States over how to reshape what many speakers saw as the United Nations most powerful — and increasingly outdated — organ.

The Palestinian Rights Committee this morning unanimously approved four draft resolutions relating to its own work, as well as that of the Division for Palestinian Rights and the Department of Public Information.

With the adoption of two draft resolutions today, the Fifth Committee gave its approval to the Board of Auditor’s scrutiny of the Organization’s 2009 financial statements and laid down a blueprint of guidelines meant to improve the staging of conferences.

The General Assembly would request the Secretary-General to work towards convening a high-level meeting on ensuring accessibility for, and inclusion of, persons with disabilities in all aspects of development efforts, under the terms of a draft resolution approved by consensus today by the Third Committee.

The General Assembly, through elections and appointments, today filled vacancies in the Committee for Programme and Coordination, the main subsidiary body of the Assembly and the Economic and Social Council for such work, as well as in the Committee on Conferences, which advises the Assembly on all matters pertaining to the organization of United Nations conferences.

At the inaugural high-level stakeholders meeting in New York, the Member States of the United Nations endorsed the importance of the Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund and pledged further support. A total of 33 Member States spoke at the meeting on 4 November, commending the Fund as a fast, relevant and catalytic resource for supporting peacebuilding initiatives in countries emerging from conflict.

The international community needed to prevent a total collapse of the direct negotiations on the Palestinian track, and an end to the occupation and the return of refugees could serve as a “doorway” to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, delegates told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today.

In his first address to the General Assembly, the new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today he aimed to change the widespread perception of the Vienna-based body as simply the world’s “nuclear watchdog”, emphasizing instead a balanced approach to pursuing non-proliferation of atomic weapons and the peaceful use of nuclear energy, two of the three pillar objectives of the landmark 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Twenty-one Member States pledged approximately $470 million today at an event in support of United Nations development activities for 2011.

Despite a “façade” of actively pursuing peace, Israel continued to infringe on the basic human rights of the Palestinians and inflict “untold suffering” through a blockade that prevented the flow of goods and people, even in life-and-death situations, undermining any future prospects for a peaceful settlement, delegates told the Fourth Committee today, as it began its annual discussion of Israeli practices affecting the human rights of Arabs in the occupied territories.