Press Conference

Children and armed conflict, justice and the rule of law, and the situation in Sudan were among the major areas to be considered by the Security Council during Mexico’s presidency in June, Claude Heller, that country’s Permanent Representative, said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The outstanding resilience of blue helmets in Haiti provided a powerful symbol for the marking of the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers this year, United Nations Secretariat officials said this afternoon. “Haiti tested us to the limit and we showed we have learned from experience and were able to deliver,” Susana Malcorra, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support told correspondents at Headquarters. “It was the best way to pay tribute to the ones we lost,” she added.

The World Cup would change the image of the African continent for the better, Wilfried Lemke, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, said today at a Headquarters press conference where several United Nations agencies highlighted their planned activities for the event.

Despite predictions of a modest global recovery in 2010 and 2011 — resulting from rising production and world trade, and a tentative rebound in private consumption and business investment — United Nations economic experts warned that widespread joblessness and large public debt in some States, if not well managed, could mean mediocre economic growth in coming years.

By week’s end, States parties to the landmark 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement would likely suggest concrete ways to improve management of the world’s key shared fisheries and tackle such pressing problems as over-fishing, over-capacity and the limited ability of developing countries to monitor off-shore coastal zones, a key ocean management official said Wednesday during a Headquarters press conference.

Some 20 years after the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, universal adherence to its two Optional Protocols would lead to the eradication of misuse of children as soldiers and sex workers, “if we do it together”, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, said at Headquarters today.

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference held in New York today, 24 May:

Presenting the results of two recent independent, peer-reviewed studies at Headquarters today, the Pew Environment Group said that regional fisheries management organizations were failing in their mandated task of regulating fishing on the high seas, with significant loopholes and lax enforcement allowing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing to continue.

The first Preparatory Committee in the run-up to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known as “Rio + 20”, had decided at its conclusion last night to hold intersessional consultations, since the eight days originally allocated for preparatory meetings would not be enough, Committee Co-Chair John Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda) said at Headquarters today.

Despite commitments made 20 years ago at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, a lack of action by several organizations and Governments highlighted a strong need for the upcoming “Rio + 20” Conference to remobilize stakeholders and build upon the economic, social and environmental pillars, said the Executive Director of Vitae Civilis of Brazil.