“We are now at a […] critical juncture on the way towards achieving a legally binding agreement that would guide global action on climate change,” said Janos Pasztor, Director of the Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team, updating correspondents on the climate change negotiations, at Headquarters this afternoon.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development points to long-standing inequalities in access to economic and financial resources, which had placed women at a disadvantage in relation to men in economic development, the Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women said at a Headquarters press conference this morning.
For the first time since its inception, the United Nations Day Concert would have a theme -- “A Tribute to Peacekeeping” -- announced Eric Falt Director of the Outreach Division in the Department of Public Information at a press conference today at Headquarters. Honouring the world body’s peacekeeping operations, the concert would be, in his words, “a long overdue tribute on the occasion of the most symbolic day in the United Nations calendar”.
Proposals for addressing the urgent needs of those living in vulnerable housing settlements and who lacked the “means to go green” must be taken more seriously in global climate discussions, the top United Nations rights expert on adequate housing said today at a Headquarters press conference.
“There isn’t an internationally recognized right that some company somewhere hasn’t violated,” John Ruggie, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, said today during a Headquarters press conference.
The international community must use a range of approaches to ameliorate the dismal human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Vitit Muntarbhorn, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in that country, told correspondents at Headquarters this afternoon.
The human rights situation in Myanmar remained alarming, with a pattern of widespread and systematic violations that prevailing impunity allowed to continue, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar said today.
During a Headquarters press conference this afternoon, Angela Kane, Under-Secretary-General for Management, and United Nations Controller, Jun Yamazaki, presented a mixed picture as they outlined the Organization’s financial health, its proposed budget, and recent reform and management initiatives.
Speaking to reporters at Headquarters today, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food warned that increasing dependency on commercial seed varieties monopolized by a few very powerful multi-national companies could severely impact small farmers in developing countries.
It was crucial to listen to victims when addressing the scourge of human trafficking, Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told correspondents this afternoon, as she announced a Headquarters event that will provide a platform to four survivors of the scourge tomorrow.