The five outgoing members of the Security Council — the Republic of Korea, Australia, Argentina, Luxembourg and Rwanda — delivered briefings to the Security Council this afternoon on the work of the subsidiary bodies they had chaired during their two-year tenure.
Although the situation in the Central African Republic remained volatile following the recent violence in Bangui, the political process was once again moving forward, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council this morning.
Delving into issues ranging from deep sea mining and continental shelf limits to pollution, piracy and plastic waste floating at the surface, the General Assembly today adopted, without a vote, a resolution on sustainable fisheries and deferred taking action on a draft text on oceans and the Law of the Sea, as more than 30 speakers and the heads of two of the world’s ocean and sea authorities weighed in on the instruments governing those domains.
The Security Council today renewed sanctions measures on Liberia for a further nine months, while recognizing the impact of the Ebola outbreak on peace and security as a factor for future decisions to modify or lift the restrictions.
The collapse of the international financial system in 2008 was partly attributable to the conflicts of interest implicit in agency-client relationships and the lack of transparency in the industry, experts said today as the Economic and Social Council held a panel exploring how countries, regional organizations and United Nations agencies could work together towards a fair, transparent and more comprehensive international credit ratings system that supported sustainable development.
Amid ongoing formulation of a blueprint for the post-2015 development agenda, diverse positions on aid, climate finance and sustainable development funding and strategies for optimizing relevant proposals emerged during today’s debate in the General Assembly on the report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing.
The General Assembly would decide to establish an ad hoc committee to elaborate a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes, according to the terms of one of six draft resolutions approved today by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).
The deadly Ebola outbreak could inflict $3-4 billion in losses on the Sub-Saharan African economy and had already begun to erode economic growth in the hardest-hit countries, the Economic and Social Council heard today as it considered how the epidemic could endanger sustainable development.
The General Assembly, acting on the recommendation of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), today adopted 25 resolutions — 14 requiring recorded votes — and four decisions on an array of subjects spanning information, decolonization, the Middle East, special political missions, atomic radiation, and outer space.
Stemming heightened tensions between the Sudanese Government and African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) was critical to relieve the dire humanitarian situation in the region, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told the Security Council this morning.
