Meetings Coverage

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) at current levels until 31 December and endorsed its phased drawdown in accordance with the Government’s wishes, conditions on the ground and following the successful completion of the 2012 electoral process.

In a message to the first meeting of the 2012 substantive session of the Special Committee on Decolonization, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today for “constructive involvement” between the Committee, the administering Powers and the Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The General Assembly today adopted a resolution on reform of the human rights treaty body system and elected three judges from a pool of six candidates to the United Nations Appeals Tribunal for terms of seven years, beginning 1 July.

Timor-Leste’s capital of Dili was a bustling city where peace was palpable and the people were committed to ensuring it in 2012 and beyond, the country’s President, José Ramos-Horta, told the Security Council this afternoon, adding that building peace must be block by block, community by community.

Fuelled by more than $150 million in ransom payments last year, Somali-based pirates were extending their deadly reach farther out into the Indian Ocean, senior United Nations officials said today, as they urged the Security Council to consider a full range of legal, judicial and preventive measures to thwart their brazen attacks.

The Security Council today, welcoming the relocation of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Somalia and the United Nations Political Office (UNPOS) to its capital and commending the contribution of the African Union Mission (AMISOM) to lasting peace and stability in the country, requested that operation to increase, by more than 5,000, its troops and formed police units.

Praise and criticism over perceived triumphs and failures peppered demands for clearly defined mandates, sustained funding, entry and exit strategies and strict compliance with core principles as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations concluded its general debate today.

Strongly concerned by the impact of transnational organized crime on West Africa and the Sahel region, including the corruption and indiscriminate violence often associated with it, the Security Council today called for system-wide United Nations action to help combat the spread of illicit weapons and drug trafficking, piracy and terrorist activity in a cross-section of fragile countries already struggling to overcome the consequences of years of civil war and instability.

The economic reach and consequences of Security Council sanctions triggered robust debate over protecting affected third party States today, as the Special Committee on the United Nations Charter and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization opened its annual session. Considered to be a “last resort”, sanctions were called “important instruments” for the maintenance and restoration of international peace and security by many Committee members.

The overall structure and systems on which United Nations peacekeeping relied were “not always optimal” and it was a common duty among all stakeholders — Headquarters, regional organizations, United Nations agencies and Member States alike — to determine which components could be improved in the coming years, Under-Secretary-General Hervé Ladsous told the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations today.