General Assembly

The rampant use of forged documents to open the floodgates for rising numbers of conventional weapon deliveries to fragile areas must be among the critical issues tackled by a robust international arms trade instrument, the representative of Dominican Republic told delegates at Headquarters, as the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty continued its month-long meeting today.

An effective arms trade treaty was an “opportunity to sow the seeds of durable peace and spark hope among millions that violence and conflict can be overcome,” the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty heard today as it continued its month-long session in New York. “The world can no longer wait for much-needed regulation of the trade of conventional weapons,” declared the representative of Costa Rica in a statement to the Conference.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace on 10 and 11 July at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in Bangkok. The theme of the Meeting will be “International efforts at addressing the obstacles to the two-State solution — the role of Asian and Pacific governmental and non-governmental actors”.

The United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty — the most important initiative ever within this organization in the field of arms regulation — opens today at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Scheduled to run through 27 July, the Conference, the first of its kind, aims to elaborate a legally binding instrument on the highest possible common international standards for the transfer of conventional arms.

The absence of global conventional arms regulations was “a disgrace” in an over-armed world where peace was under-funded, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates today after opening the highly anticipated month-long United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, stalled yesterday and throughout much of today, owing to wrangling over the meeting’s rules of procedure.

States Parties to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women today elected by secret ballot 11 members of its monitoring body to replace those whose four-year terms are set to expire at year’s end.

The Special Committee on Decolonization concluded its 2012 substantive session today with the adoption by consensus of two draft resolutions on the questions of Tokelau and New Caledonia, and with its Chair stressing it must make the process of decolonization pragmatic and useful for the 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories under its purview.

The Special Committee on Decolonization continued its 2012 substantive session today with the approval, without a vote, of a draft resolution containing its report on decisions concerning organizational matters, as well as the report of the Pacific Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, held in Quito from 30 May to 1 June 2012.

The 24-member Committee that monitors implementation of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories approved by consensus today an omnibus draft resolution on the questions of American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Guam, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands and United States Virgin Islands.

The Special Committee on Decolonization today approved three draft resolutions dealing with various aspects of its work, as it continued its session at Headquarters.