Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly today elected 15 States to serve on the Human Rights Council for three-year terms beginning next month, in a single round of secret balloting which followed the candidates’ nomination by their respective regional groups.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today recommended 10 entities for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, and postponed its consideration of 32 applications.

Deadly Israeli-Palestinian clashes, along with the Palestinian reconciliation and state-building efforts, showed that the conflict between the two sides was not immune to the political changes sweeping across the Arab world, a top United Nations official told the Security Council today. “One way or another, change will come to it too,” said Robert Serry, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General.

While the global consensus that now stood behind the 2007 Declaration on Indigenous Rights should be celebrated, its implementation remained a “constant challenge” and strong efforts were needed, nationally and internationally, to make its principles “alive in the reality on the ground”, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was told today during a full-day discussion of human rights concerns.

While noting the Organization’s improved financial situation at year-end 2010, Member States gathered at the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) session today reminded each other of their obligation to pay their assessments in full and on time so as to keep the United Nations running smoothly. Their debate came a week after the Under-Secretary-General for Management, Angela Kane, gave the Committee her semi-annual snapshot of the Organization’s financial picture.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today opened the General Assembly’s first-ever thematic debate on international migration and development with a strong call for an intelligent, cooperative approach, focused on the positive “to harness the unstoppable force of migration for the greater good”.

Completing its fourth day of the resumed 2011 session, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) today recommended special consultative status for 25 entities to the Economic and Social Council, and postponed consideration of 26 additional groups until the Committee receive answers to its outstanding questions.

Pointing to progress in consolidating peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Security Council stressed today that a strong partnership between the United Nations and the Congolese Government was needed for the next phase of the country’s emergence from civil war.

The full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be regarded as a political, moral and legal imperative without qualification, the Permanent Forum was told today during a half-day discussion on human rights.

The Economic and Social Council today adopted three texts, the first a resolution endorsing the decision of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean to hold its thirty-fourth session in El Salvador during the first half of 2012.