General Assembly

The thirty-fourth annual session of the Committee on Information, the intergovernmental body charged with reviewing progress in the field of United Nations public information, will take place at Headquarters from 23 April to 4 May.

The Special Committee on Decolonization — also known as the Special Conference of 24 — today decided to hold its Pacific Regional Seminar in the Ecuadorian capital Quito, from 30 May to 1 June this year, to review progress in the United Nations decolonization process.

The Disarmament Commission met briefly this morning and completed the Bureau for its 2012 session with the election of two Vice-Chairs and a Rapporteur.

The United Nations Disarmament Commission reached an agreement on a provisional agenda for the work of its 2012 substantive session today, ending a three-day-long stalemate that some feared would jeopardize the body’s ability to continue its work.

Despite the inability of the Disarmament Commission by the close of day three of its session today to adopt a substantive agenda, it continued its general debate along with informal rounds of talks aimed at framing its item on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in language satisfactory to all.

Eager to begin its work in earnest today, the United Nations Disarmament Commission opened its general debate segment without agreement on the substantive aspects of its agenda, following two days of intensive discussion aimed at bridging positions and organizing priorities on a formulation acceptable to all.

The past six months had seen an active, responsive General Assembly that had been relevant in addressing many of the key global issues of concern to all, its President, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser (Qatar), said at Headquarters today, pledging a redoubling of efforts to achieve success on all remaining matters on the organ’s agenda in the remaining six months of its current session.

Conjuring images of the potentially “monstrous” effects of global nuclear fallout, speakers at the opening of the 2012 substantive session of the United Nations Disarmament Commission stressed that, after a dozen fruitless consecutive sessions, the body could waste no more time remaining gripped by deadlock or mired in repeated iterations of national interests.

The Human Rights Committee concluded its 104th session today, with a discussion about how to transform the “unwieldy” process under which States updated Geneva-based treaty bodies on their adherence to international human rights instruments into a rational, predictable system that motivated them to submit fewer — and more timely — reports.

The Human Rights Committee today adopted its annual report to the General Assembly, deciding to include — as an annex — a request for additional resources to deal with a backlog of communications received under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, pending a revision of that document’s language.