Meetings Coverage

The head of the United Department of Public Information today opened the seventeenth International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East, urging Israelis, Palestinians and the wider international community, particularly journalists, to support the world body’s ongoing efforts to help the parties arrive at a just and lasting solution.

Concluding the General Assembly’s debate on States’ responsibility to protect their people from mass-atrocity crimes, delegates today weighed whether that multifaceted and controversial concept provided sufficient legal grounds for collective intervention in national affairs.

While praising Switzerland as a leader in human rights policy, experts of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women expressed concern over the difficulties of instituting country-wide policies for women’s equality given the federal system that gives great autonomy to its districts, which are known as cantons and communes.

Taking up the situation in the Middle East, speakers in today’s Security Council debate welcomed the new international push to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although concern over the lack of movement since the adoption of resolution 1860 (2009) more than six months ago prompted some to call for more decisive Council action.

Azerbaijan has instituted a wide array of initiatives for gender equality in a short period, despite recent conflict, experts of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women said today, while at the same time expressing concern over trafficking in persons, the low percentage of women in decision-making positions and other issues.

As delegates from the Lao People’s Democratic Republic shed light today on recent legislation and programmes to improve the lot of women in their country, they faced criticism from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women over Government policies to address rape and domestic violence.

Five years after the Security Council had placed the situation in Sudan’s war‑ravaged western Darfur region on its agenda, the top United Nations peacekeeping official today expressed his deep frustration that everyone -- the Government, the rebel movements and the international community –- had failed to muster the political will to address the crisis “in all its heart-wrenching complexity”.

The General Assembly debate on protecting civilians from the most serious atrocities continued today as delegates wrestled with the extent to which States should step in to stop -– and ultimately prevent -- genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

Recognizing strides made by women in Japan in the 24 years since the country had acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, experts of the Committee that reviews compliance with that Convention today discussed ways the country could overcome entrenched attitudes and other persistent obstacles to women’s equality.

Following Bhutan’s historic transition last year to a democratic constitutional monarchy, the South Asian nation had harmonized a myriad of domestic laws in accordance with the women’s Convention and created its first national action plan to ensure gender equality in all aspects of economic, political and social life, Bhutan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said today.