Meetings Coverage

The world had a shared calling to lift people from poverty and support long-term sustainable development, a task that was growing more urgent each day amid high food and energy prices and widening inequities between and within countries, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Economic and Social Council today, as he launched the Third Development Cooperation Forum.

An effective arms trade treaty was an “opportunity to sow the seeds of durable peace and spark hope among millions that violence and conflict can be overcome,” the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty heard today as it continued its month-long session in New York. “The world can no longer wait for much-needed regulation of the trade of conventional weapons,” declared the representative of Costa Rica in a statement to the Conference.

Concerned by the forced demographic changes resulting from the conflicts in Georgia, and the humanitarian situation causes by the 2008 armed conflict, the General Assembly this morning recognized the right of return of internally displaced persons to their homes throughout that country, including Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while adopting consensus texts on the Year of Crystallography and United Nations support for promoting democracy.

Amid concern over predictions for yet another year of tepid global growth, the Economic and Social Council held a high-level policy dialogue today with marquee financial and trade organizations on the state of the world economy, as it also wrapped up its annual ministerial review on ways to generate decent jobs and end poverty.

The absence of global conventional arms regulations was “a disgrace” in an over-armed world where peace was under-funded, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates today after opening the highly anticipated month-long United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, stalled yesterday and throughout much of today, owing to wrangling over the meeting’s rules of procedure.

For the world’s 205 million unemployed, finding work was difficult amid a slow economic recovery and rigid labour markets, conditions that presented an opportunity for the Economic and Social Council to sharpen its focus on youth, integrate its development efforts and advocate for a decisive multilateralism that benefited the most marginalized, Miloš Koterec, President of the 54-member body, said today.

Demanding an immediate end to the atrocities perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Central Africa, the Security Council today encouraged all Governments in the subregion to work together, through a recently launched regional initiative, to fight the scourge.

The Security Council today decided to increase the size of the group of experts attached to its committee monitoring the implementation of resolution 1540 (2004), which aims to keep weapons of mass destruction and their components out of the hands of terrorists and other non-State actors. Through resolution 2055 (2012), adopted unanimously by the 15‑member body, the Council cited the increased workload of the subordinate body, known as the 1540 Committee, as the reason for its action.

The Security Council today decided to permit four judges of the Tribunal trying serious crimes committed during the 1994 Rwanda genocide to serve beyond the expiry of their terms of office in order to complete the work of the court, due to be completed by December 2014.

Culminating its third biennial review of the 2006 United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the General Assembly today unanimously adopted a resolution renewing its unwavering commitment to strengthening international cooperation to prevent and combat all forms of the scourge, and emphasizing the need to promote worldwide solidarity in support of the victims of terrorist acts.