Cautiously welcoming a week-old peace deal ending the fighting in South Sudan, Security Council members raised a range of concerns about subsequent clashes and the protracted humanitarian crisis, as high-level officials updated on recent developments today.
Commencing the seventy-third session of the General Assembly today, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (Ecuador), the organ’s fourth woman President in the Organization’s 73 years, said she is assuming her role with a “profound sense of responsibility” and a sense of urgency to go beyond a political agenda.
Syria, in its eighth year of war, must not miss an opportunity to create the constitutional committee, the top United Nations official tasked with seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis told the Security Council today, also welcoming the new Russian Turkish agreement to establish a demilitarized zone in Idlib.
The intergovernmental conference drafting a legally binding treaty under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea governing marine biodiversity in ocean waters beyond national jurisdiction concluded its first session today with its President stating that it is firmly on the path to achieving its mission.
Amid the recent rise in civilian casualties inside Afghanistan, decisions made now ahead of elections in October will have far‑reaching implications for the country’s future and play a key role in advancing the peace process, the senior United Nations official in that country told the Security Council today.
Concluding the General Assembly’s seventy-second session today, the outgoing President spotlighted salient trends emerging over recent years — ranging from more robust support for conflict prevention efforts to intensifying attacks on multilateralism — before handing the gavel to the President-elect of the seventy‑third session.
The representatives of the United States and the Russian Federation traded accusations today over the report of the Panel of Experts relating to the sanctions imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the Security Council met to consider non-proliferation.
The General Assembly today adopted a resolution related to the ongoing process aimed at revitalizing its work, while also allocating a list of items for consideration at its seventy-third session, slated to open formally on 18 September.
Delegates to the first session of the intergovernmental conference drafting a legally binding treaty under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea governing marine biodiversity in ocean waters beyond national jurisdiction deliberated on how to move forward today, with the majority speaking in favour of a “zero draft” or similar text around which they could focus their negotiations.
National financing frameworks for sustainable development and the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on financing in developing countries are among the issues to be addressed in the thematic chapter of the 2019 and 2020 reports of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Financing for Development, speakers said today in a joint meeting of the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly’s Second Committee (Economic and Financial).
