Meetings Coverage

In a session during which the General Assembly was slated to scrutinize the complex methodology used to determine each Member State’s annual budget contribution, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today adopted a consensus resolution that allowed six countries to retain their voting rights even though they had fallen behind in paying their annual dues to the Organization.

The Security Council this afternoon failed to adopt a resolution that would have condemned “grave and systematic human rights violations” in Syria, and would have warned of options for action to be considered against the Government of President Bashar al-Assad if the unfolding situation warranted, including measures under the section of the United Nations Charter that allowed sanctions.

The United Nations could no longer “turn a blind eye” to the risks posed by a failed State in the Western Sahara, as that would jeopardize global security, the Fourth Committee heard today, as petitioners for Western Sahara, New Caledonia, Guam, Turks and Caicos, and the United States Virgin Islands took the floor in the decolonization debate.

Austerity measures adopted by developed countries to address the current economic upheaval hurt global growth and pushed millions more into poverty just when greater social protection was needed, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) was told today.

During the concluding discussion in the Sixth Committee (Legal) on the subject of measures to eliminate international terrorism, delegates today repeatedly illustrated that no country or State in the world was immune from terrorism, and that it now was imperative to finalize the draft articles of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

Although the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) region had enjoyed a “golden decade” of growth and development in the late 1990s and up to 2008, it had been hit harder by the “great recession” than any other, Executive Secretary Ján Kubiš told the Second Committee today.

The path from Prague was fast and straight, but now that path was starting to move into “uncharted terrain”, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance told the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today as it debated viable approaches and credible options for the oft-expressed goal of general and complete disarmament.

Taking up the wide-ranging reports of the Office of International Oversight Services (OIOS) and the Independent Audit Advisory Committee, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon strongly supported the recent efforts and progress of those two crucial oversight bodies in strengthening the accountability and transparency of United Nations activities.

As democratic movements drove political change in North Africa and the Middle East, and as new economic powers transformed the geopolitical landscape, the United Nations, to maintain its respected stature, must define effective, multifaceted strategies suited for a new era, General Assembly delegates said today as they considered the Secretary-General’s report on the Organizations’ work.

Decolonization was one of the most defining issues of the latter part of the twentieth century, and the untiring efforts of United Nations had ensured that nearly all of the world’s population no longer lived under colonial rule, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) was told as it began its annual general debate on that issue.