General Assembly

The General Assembly today appointed Gérard Biraud (France), István Posta (Hungary), Papa Louis Fall (Senegal) and Cihan Terzi (Turkey) as members of the Joint Inspection Unit for a five-year term of office beginning on 1 January 2011 and expiring on 31 December 2015.

The Fourth Biennial Meeting of States to consider the implementation of the 2001 Programme of Action aimed at eradicating the illicit small arms trade today adopted by consensus its outcome document, as it concluded its week-long session. Sergio Duarte, United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, praised all delegates and organizers for a successful session and for reaching a consensus on the important outcome.

Representatives of international organizations, Member States and law-enforcement authorities convened today at the United Nations General Assembly for a special meeting to spur more effective use of an international legal weapon designed to fight burgeoning cross-border organized crime.

Weapons-tracing data was currently often scattered, unreliable and fragmented, hindering the effectiveness of the world’s attack on the illegal small arms trade, many delegates told the Fourth Biennial Meeting on combating the trade today, as States also began consideration of its final document by agreeing on the annex covering the international tracing instrument.

The easy availability of firearms multiplied the probability of death or grave violations of human rights in communities around the world and, as in warding off a disease, in preventing armed violence these communities must build up resistance and reduce their exposure to the vector of injury — the gun, delegates were told today, as the Fourth Biennial Meeting on combating the illicit small arms and light weapons trade reached the halfway mark of its week-long session.

Resuming its 2010 session this morning, the Special Committee on Decolonization approved requests for hearings from several Non-Self-Governing Territories in the coming days, with a petitioner from Gibraltar asserting that 50 years after the General Assembly had passed its historic resolution 1514 (XV), which called for the immediate transfer of power from all colonized Territories to their peoples, an assessment of the overall decolonization process was needed.

Fine-tuning existing tools to stem the flow of the nefarious illicit arms trade topped a volley of suggestions that were the focus of debate today as the Fourth Biennial Meeting of States on combating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons continued.

“The global scourge from the illicit trade in small arms and ammunition continues to wreak havoc” and was highly destabilizing, impacting upon security and development in literally all regions of the world, Sergio Duarte, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said today at the opening of the Fourth Biennial Meeting of States on combating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

The twentieth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will be held at Headquarters from 14 to 18 June.

The General Assembly this morning elected Joseph Deiss, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Switzerland who led his country’s accession to the United Nations in 2002, as President of its sixty-fifth session.