Meetings Coverage

Concrete action towards the goal of complete nuclear disarmament, while guaranteeing the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, was urgently needed — both to ensure a safer world and to prove the value of the “struggling” Disarmament Commission, whose reputation had been tarnished by years of inaction, delegates said today, as they wrapped up the general debate of its 2011 substantive session.

While it was still very difficult to know how long it will take for conflict in Libya to be resolved, the responsibility for finding a solution lay with the Libyan people themselves, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, Abdul Ilah al-Khatib, told the Security Council today during a briefing on his second mission to the country and other recent events there.

Moving closer to operationalizing the global reporting and assessment process on the state of the world’s marine environment, which was first called for by the 2002 Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, the General Assembly today adopted a consensus resolution requesting that the Secretary-General explore the establishment of appropriate means to address the communications requirements needed for the launch of such a process.

The Secretary-General of the upcoming Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries called on Member States to intensify their efforts to forge a programme of action that would have concrete results in improving the lives of people in the poorest States, as he opened the second Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the Conference this morning.

Despite an eleven-year stalemate in the Disarmament Commission over ways to achieve nuclear disarmament and wide scepticism that confidence-building measures in the field of conventional arms would also remain elusive, hope remained for achieving consensus on each item of that body’s painstakingly agreed agenda, said Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs as he opened the Commission’s 2011 substantive session.

The United Nations expert body monitoring worldwide implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights concluded its 101st session at Headquarters in New York today, having taken up the compliance reports of Mongolia, Serbia, Slovakia and Togo.

Noting the similarities between Latin America’s politically repressive and violent past and the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, representatives of non-governmental organizations attending a United Nations Meeting in the Uruguayan capital today called on Latin American and Caribbean civil society to work together to help resolve the conflict in the Holy Land and bring justice to the Palestinian people.

With the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries a little more than a month away, the General Assembly convened today an interactive civil society hearing to explore ways grass-roots organizations could revive the global drumbeat on behalf of the world’s poorest countries and put pressure on Governments to honour their promises to deliver sustainable development for all.

The 18-member Human Rights Committee was briefed today by Yuji Iwasawa, expert from Japan, on the results of the Inter-Committee Meeting Working Group on Follow-up, held in Geneva from 12 to 14 January 2011.

The United Nations Latin American and Caribbean Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace closed today in Montevideo, Uruguay with an urgent call to the parties to resume serious negotiations to resolve permanent status issues within an agreed timeframe and to Israel to fully and immediately cease all settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.