Plenary

As the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia approached the completion of their mandates - and the twentieth anniversaries of their inception - it was now up to their smaller, leaner successor body to preserve the “new international culture of accountability” they had created, top officials from the courts said today as they briefed the General Assembly.

As the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia approached the completion of their mandates - and the twentieth anniversaries of their inception - it was now up to their smaller, leaner successor body to preserve the “new international culture of accountability” they had created, top officials from the courts said today as they briefed the General Assembly.

“I’m afraid that we are confronted with the choice of either adapting to the new times, or simply being left behind,” General Assembly President Vuk Jeremić said today as delegates discussed ways to reinvigorate the 193-member body, which faced an ever-widening gap between its duties and its capabilities.

Citing an increasingly interdependent world in which the three pillars of the United Nations - peace and security, development and human rights – continued to converge in complex ways, General Assembly delegates today called for greater equity between developed and developing countries in matters ranging from multilateral decision-making to sustainable development policy, as they considered the Secretary-General’s annual report on the work of the United Nations system.

A week of thoughtful and constructive interventions by the General Assembly’s Member States — nearly all of whom had touched on issues related to the theme of the sixty-seventh session, the peaceful settlement of disputes — had catalyzed a “fruitful discourse” on ways to stabilize the world’s increasing geostrategic volatility and unpredictability, said Assembly President Vuk Jeremić (Serbia) as he closed the body’s annual general debate.

Foreign Ministers of small nations today called on Member States to take responsibility for strengthening the international multilateral system through respect for the rule of law and with the United Nations at its centre, to overcome global security, human rights, economic, environmental and development crises, as the General Assembly held the fifth and penultimate day of its annual general debate.

With their countries locked in a life-and-death struggle against climate change — a battle they were currently losing — leaders of some of the world’s smallest and most vulnerable nations today warned the General Assembly that apathy about the health of the planet and “political cowardice” on reaching a post-Kyoto Protocol climate deal had left them one category 2 hurricane away from economic and social collapse.

In a move intended to bolster the chances for peace, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, announced in the General Assembly today that his Government would seek status for Palestine as a non-Member State of the United Nations, following what he described as “aborted” efforts last year to have the Security Council allow the State of Palestine to “assume its rightful place in the United Nations”, despite widespread support for the initiative.

Even with a slow economic rebound, bloody conflict in Syria and a deadly consulate attack in Libya casting a long shadow across the Middle East and North Africa — leading some to conclude that the Arab Spring had faded to an Arab Winter — leaders addressing the General Assembly today stressed that the international community, far from turning its back on the volatile region, must redouble support to all fleeing tyranny and seeking to determine their own destiny.

“I am here to sound the alarm,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, urging political leaders gathered for the General Assembly’s annual debate to overcome divisions and wilful blindness before it was too late to effectively address such global challenges as widespread insecurity, deepening inequality, government waste, and the impacts of climate change.