General Assembly

The following statement was issued today by the Bureau of the General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:

With a unified sense of purpose, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today rallied around the Secretary-General’s proposal for measures against racism and racial discrimination in the United Nations Secretariat, calling for resource and personnel funding for establishing an anti-racism office and supporting the Special Adviser on Addressing Racism in the Workplace, as well as an immediate end to inequitable geographical representation of staff positions, particularly Professional and higher categories, in the Organization.

In another full day of action, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved six resolutions today, including on the human rights situations in Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Myanmar and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In a full day of action, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved 12 draft resolutions today, with topics ranging from the Human Rights Council, persons with disabilities in conflict, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and human rights and digital technologies.

Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today backed the ongoing multi-faceted construction and renovation projects at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United Nations Office at Nairobi, lauding efforts toward energy efficiency, cost savings and sustainability.  They also emphasized the need for the projects to be kept tightly on schedule.

The General Assembly today took up the Economic and Social Council’s report and concluded its consideration of the Assembly’s resolutions on revitalization.

Against the backdrop of escalating violence in the Middle East, the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs today warned of a dangerous expansion of the conflict in the wider region during the opening of the fourth session of the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved 12 draft resolutions today on a wide range of topics, including the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, the role of the United Nations in promoting democratization and violence against women migrant workers.

As people feel “intense frustration and disillusionment” amid growing conflict and international economic uncertainties on the heels of a deadly global pandemic, revitalizing the work of the General Assembly — the most democratic body of the United Nations — is growing increasingly critical, its President said today.

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today approved three resolutions, voting on two of them, including one demanding that Israel cease the exploitation, damage, cause of loss or depletion and endangerment of the natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and in the occupied Syrian Golan.