Plenary

The General Assembly today adopted a resolution endorsing the construction at Headquarters of a permanent memorial to honour the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, and encouraging Member States and other interested parties to contribute to the Trust Fund set up to pay for it.

In one round of voting, the General Assembly today elected Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia to serve as non-permanent members of the Security Council for the next two years.

The ideal of a world where accountability was the expectation, and not the exception, had become a reality, despite challenges of arresting fugitives and staff retention, the General Assembly heard today as the Presidents of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for Former Yugoslavia presented their annual reports.

In a consensus text adopted today, the General Assembly resolved that the post-2015 agenda should reinforce the international community’s commitment to poverty eradication and sustainable development.

A broad range of stakeholders’ commitments, criticisms and concerns had built momentum towards redoubling efforts in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and towards advancing the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015, said General Assembly Vice-President Octavio Errázuriz today at the close of the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development.

Meeting the Millennium Development Goals before the 2015 deadline and paving the way beyond hinged on a strong financing framework that reflected a changing landscape of climate emergencies, economic crises and innovative solutions, delegates heard today as the General Assembly began a two-day High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development.

Lamenting the deaths of more the 100 men, women and children shipwrecked in Lampedusa and the tireless search for more than 100 other migrants still missing, Italy’s representative said today that it was now up to the international community to address migration issues.

Strengthening the connection between people seeking livelihoods abroad and the post-2015 development agenda was crucial to origin and destination countries and to migrants themselves, delegates heard today, after unanimously adopting the Declaration of the General Assembly’s High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development.

The world should not ease the pressure on Iran’s nuclear programme as that country positioned itself to “race across the red line” before the international community could prevent it from building nuclear bombs, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said today as the General Assembly concluded its week-long general debate.

As the General Assembly entered week two of its annual debate, Canada’s Minister for Foreign Affairs said he rejected the “pernicious notion” that human dignity could be “sliced up, compartmentalized or compromised”, since it was impossible, in a pluralistic society, to protect some human rights and freedoms while infringing others.