Adhering to its long-standing tradition, the Sixth Committee (Legal) today approved without a vote five draft resolutions and adopted a draft decision on its provisional programme of work for 2016, as it concluded its substantive work for the seventieth session of the General Assembly.
The Security Council determined today that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/Sham (ISIL/ISIS) constituted an “unprecedented” threat to international peace and security, calling upon Member States with the requisite capacity to take “all necessary measures” to prevent and suppress its terrorist acts on territory under its control in Syria and Iraq.
Efforts to clamp down on terrorists must, at the same time, comply with all human rights, humanitarian and refugee law, the Third Committee heard today as it approved nine texts, including on counter-terrorism, freedom of religion or belief, combating religious intolerance and promoting cultural diversity.
A comprehensive new approach requiring the efforts of the entire international community was needed to tackle the dramatic and unprecedented refugee crisis in the Mediterranean basin, the General Assembly heard today, as it held a day-long debate on the subject, with a particular focus on the plight of Syrian asylum seekers.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today approved a draft resolution stressing the need for the United Nations internal oversight body to place increased emphasis on investigations into frauds. The Committee also started its examination of the newly launched Umoja business transformation system.
The General Assembly today unanimously adopted texts on widely differing topics — one which gave its members the chance to reflect on the history of the Organization as well as on the idealism inspired by a past leader and another on the Board tasked with promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Leaders in Serbia and Kosovo must continue to show “far-sighted” commitment to overcome fresh political turbulence that threatened to set back recent hard-won agreements aimed at normalizing relations, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council today.
The abhorrent terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula reinforced the reality that the extremism and terrorism infecting many parts of the Middle East was not constrained by borders, and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be separated from the global threat of terrorism, the Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council this morning.
Confrontation and politically motivated country-specific resolutions undermined the dialogue and cooperation between States and hampered the improvement of human rights, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) heard today as it took action on a package of draft resolutions ranging from situation reports of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and Syria to the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved a resolution today on “Consumer protection”, deciding to establish an intergovernmental group of experts on consumer protection law and policy within the framework of an existing commission of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
