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.
New momentum must be generated and high-level meetings must be resumed so that Kosovo and Serbia could continue towards the normalization of relations, in order to fulfil the promise and opportunities presented by the European Union integration process, said the top envoy of the United Nations in Kosovo, as he briefed the Security Council on recent developments.
With its approval today of a draft resolution on the United Nations pension system, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) asked the General Assembly to stress the need for United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund managers to address all the weaknesses in the system identified by the Board of Auditors.
