Fine-tuning the funding architecture, streamlining operational activities and garnering a “new political momentum” were critical for the United Nations to play a key role in the post-2015 development era, the Economic and Social Council heard today during a dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the United Nations development system, as it also adopted three procedural resolutions.
This year represented a milestone for global action towards inclusive, equitable and sustainable development, a United Nations top official told the Economic and Social Council as the 54-nation organ commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the World Summit for Social Development at the opening of its June coordination and management session.
The twenty-fifth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea opened today, with top officials from the instrument’s three main bodies shining the spotlight on ways they had advanced peaceful dispute settlement, regulated mineral activities in the international seabed and facilitated implementation of the “constitution for the ocean”.
With great strides made in reversing the global HIV epidemic since the dawn of the new millennium, the international community must build upon that progress — and avoid complacency — as it set out a new, post-2015 development agenda, speakers told the General Assembly this morning.
The military track as a means to end the crisis in Ukraine had not been abandoned, and a prospect of a return to a deepening, intractable conflict was emerging, the Security Council heard today following the recent escalation of hostilities in eastern parts of that country.
Urging the international community to shun unmet expectations from direct Palestinian-Israeli talks over the past 20 years, the top representative of the observer State of Palestine called for the application of a “collective process”, which had shown promising results on Iran, Syria and Ukraine.
The International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia were downsizing as quickly as possible, top officials from those courts told the Security Council today, stressing that their impending closure and transition to a smaller successor body was an opportunity to both preserve and share lessons learned in the practice of international jurisprudence.
The General Assembly today adopted, by a recorded vote, a resolution recognizing the right of return of all internally displaced persons and refugees and their descendants, regardless of ethnicity, to their homes throughout Georgia, during a session that drew unanimous action on four other texts.
Suspending its 2015 resumed session pending one final day of work, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today decided, by consensus, to close the applications for consultative status of 28 organizations that had not responded to its last three requests for information.
The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today recommended 16 organizations for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council and deferred action on 27 others, while voting to withdraw the roster status of two organizations, African Technology Development Link and African Technical Association.
