After two decades of stalled action on Security Council reform, it was high time to move the process forward, the General Assembly heard today, with many speakers calling for an updated Council that would better reflect the sweeping global changes that had occurred since the founding of the United Nations in 1946.
While some delegates spotlighted the link between ensuring fundamental freedoms and achieving sustainable development, several others expressed concern that the Human Rights Council was overstepping its mandate, the General Assembly heard today, as it considered that body’s annual report.
The General Assembly met today to elect members of the International Law Commission, the United Nations organ tasked with the progressive development of international law and its codification.
Urgent action was required to deal with the effects of El Niño, the General Assembly heard this morning as it discussed the phenomenon that devastates more than 60 million people a year and whose extreme weather events were predicted only to worsen in the future.
With crimes against humanity multiplying around the world, States must push forward toward — and not back away from — universal support for the International Criminal Court, the General Assembly heard today, as it considered the latest annual report of the Hague-based judicial body.
The General Assembly today elected, by secret ballot, 14 States to serve on the Human Rights Council, the United Nations body responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe.
Seventy years after its inception, the International Court of Justice — the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and “tireless custodian of the international legal order” — was more needed now than ever before, the General Assembly heard today, as it considered the Court’s latest annual report.
In a near‑unanimous vote, the General Assembly today adopted a resolution on the necessity of ending the United States economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba, despite the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries two years ago.
The memory of the more than 15 million victims of the transatlantic slave trade provided a moral imperative to effectively combat racism, xenophobia, inequality and modern-day manifestations of slavery, speakers in the General Assembly said today as it held its annual commemoration of the largest forced migration in human history.
With violent extremism on the rise and waves of intolerance and hate targeting minorities, migrants and the most vulnerable, the international community must renew efforts to uphold its human rights treaties, the General Assembly heard this morning.
