Plenary

Enhanced alliances between the United Nations and regional and treaty bodies were needed to address current and emerging global challenges, as well as to achieve several longstanding — and as yet unmet — international goals, said delegates today as the General Assembly adopted consensus texts reaffirming cooperation with a number of such organizations.

Despite recognizing the need to make the Security Council more representative and fit to tackle complex global challenges, delegates remained divided on the future makeup of the 15-nation body, as the General Assembly today discussed the Council’s work and reforming its structure.

Gathering in the General Assembly Hall today, delegates assessed the work of the Human Rights Council covering an ever-increasing array of topics that came under its purview, but with scant resources to address them all.

Voting nearly-unanimously to adopt the General Assembly’s twenty-first consecutive resolution calling for an end to the United States’ blockade against Cuba, United Nations delegates urged President Barack Obama, fresh-off a re-election victory, to “act on the right side of history” and lift Washington’s crushing economic, commercial and financial embargo on the island nation.

The General Assembly today elected 18 States to serve on the Human Rights Council, the United Nations key forum for tackling entrenched human rights concerns around the world.

The General Assembly today elected 18 members of the Economic and Social Council to serve three-year terms beginning 1 January 2013.

Completing their consideration of the annual reports on the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, General Assembly delegates today hailed the latter’s issuance of its first judgment, stressed the importance of full cooperation by States to ensure that Court’s further success and were divided on the relationship between the Court and the Security Council.

Nuclear technology would continue to play an integral role in securing energy and promoting socioeconomic development, delegates said today as the General Assembly discussed the 2011 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and adopted a resolution reaffirming “strong support” for its indispensable role.

With an outpouring of praise for the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, delegates gathered today in the General Assembly to assess the work of that body and to hear the introduction of the report on the work of the International Criminal Court.

Emerging from the “Rio+20” with a reaffirmed mandate as one of the primary United Nations bodies responsible for sustainable development, the Economic and Social Council must be reinvigorated to play an active role in following up the outcomes of that summit and in setting the post-2015 development agenda, the General Assembly was told today as delegates gathered for their annual joint debate on the Council’s work.