General Assembly

Acting without a vote, the Sixth Committee (Legal) today approved 10 draft resolutions and three decisions, as it wound up its main body of work for the current Assembly session by giving consideration to the report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country.

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved two draft resolutions today, including a text that would have the General Assembly demand that Israel stop exploiting, damaging, depleting or endangering the natural resources of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the occupied Syrian Golan.

A new tone of flexibility and compromise emerged during the General Assembly’s annual debate on Security Council reform, as delegates vowed to push towards achieving a model that would produce the elusive consensus needed to revamp the United Nations’ most recognizable body.

What the international community faced today concerning the “crimes committed in Gaza by the Israeli regime was not a lack of standards and norms, but a need for greater effort to implement them”, Iran’s representative told the Fourth Committee as it concluded its general debate on Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.

Saying torture can “never be justified,” the Third Committee today approved a draft resolution that would have the General Assembly condemn all forms of torture and any action, or even attempts, by States or public officials to legalize, authorize or acquiesce in torture and other inhuman treatment under any circumstances, including on grounds of national security or through judicial decisions.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People today recommended adoption by the General Assembly of four draft resolutions concerning its work, the work of the Division for Palestinian Rights and of the Department of Public Information regarding the question of Palestine as well as the peaceful settlement of that question.

A total of 14 draft resolutions were introduced in the Second Committee this afternoon on agenda items ranging from sustainable development to macroeconomic policy questions to globalization and interdependence.

As the Fifth Committee this morning considered the progress achieved during the first year of the construction phase of the Capital Master Plan, speakers stressed the highest priority of the smooth and cost-effective implementation of the project and its timely completion.

Underscoring the importance of dialogue and tolerance to enriching cultures and promoting understanding among faiths, the General Assembly capped its two-day debate on the culture of peace with the adoption of two consensus resolutions that sought to make peace a way of life for people around the world.

Acting without a vote, a meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights this afternoon elected MahjoubEl Haiba ( Morocco) to membership of the Human Rights Committee, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Mohammed Ayat ( Morocco) from the Committee before the expiration of his term on 31 December 2012.