General Assembly

The views of troop- and police-contributing countries must be reflected at all levels of United Nations peacekeeping operations — not just on the ground but also at Headquarters — the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations heard as it concluded its general debate today.

With the United Nations peacekeeping machinery confronted by increasing demands and a range of emerging conflicts — and potentially poised to consider new engagements in Mali, Syria and the Horn of Africa — the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations opened its 2013 substantive session today amid discussion of critical and evolving issues, including reimbursements for troops and equipment, and civilian capacity in the aftermath of conflict.

While the General Assembly’s recent decision to enhance the status of Palestine at the United Nations had “resonated deeply” within the Organization, international re-engagement would be meaningless without serious commitments by the parties concerned to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

A groundbreaking resolution just adopted by the General Assembly on female genital mutilation would equip all States to combat those harmful practices, the representative of Burkina Faso, Der Kogda, announced at a Headquarters press conference today.

A Special Meeting of the States Parties to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea today elected Szymon Uścinowicz of Poland to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, filling the 21-member body’s last seat allotted to the Group of Eastern European States.

In a single round of voting today, the Fourteenth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child elected nine members to the 18-member committee charged with monitoring implementation of the treaty and its two Optional Protocols.

The Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People issued the following statement today, 6 December:

Opening its 2013 organizational session, the Disarmament Commission today elected its new Chair and decided to hold its 2013 substantive session from 1 to 19 April, which would kick off its next three-year cycle.

Sharing the deep “global frustration” that the two-State solution seemed ever more distant, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People today that the cost of the continued stalemate rose with each passing day, serving as the “complex and wrenching backdrop” – historic and present-day – against which the Palestinians had decided to seek non-Member Observer State status in the General Assembly.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will hold a special meeting in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in North Lawn Building Conference Room 4 at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, 29 November 2012, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977.