General Assembly

After months of collecting inputs and suggestions from countries, regional groups, civil society organizations and international organizations, United Nations Member States will meet 15‑16 December to discuss the structure and format of the outcome document that will be finalized by world leaders at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development — Rio+20 — to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012.

Broader involvement and greater engagement had driven forward the latest round of talks on reforming the Security Council, the Chair of the negotiations on that process said at Headquarters today.

States Parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination this morning elected by secret ballot nine members of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to replace those whose four-year terms were set to expire on 19 January 2012.

The need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had taken on greater urgency with the historic transformations taking place across the region, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

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 Conference Room 2, North Lawn Building, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 29 November, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 32/40 B of 2 December 1977.

The Palestinian Rights Committee this afternoon unanimously approved four draft resolutions concerning its own work, as well as that of the Division for Palestinian Rights and the Department of Public Information.

Twenty Member States pledged approximately $265 million today at an event in support of United Nations development activities for 2012. Opening the 2011 Pledging Conference, Navid Hanif, Acting Director of the Office of Economic and Social Council Support and Coordination in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, noted that the ever-deepening global economic and financial crisis was taking a heavy toll on human development and risked rolling back decades of gains.

Faiza Patel, Chair of the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination, told correspondents today about the Working Group’s visits to Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and Iraq.

An overhaul of inequitable agricultural business models was needed to reduce global poverty and ensure long-term sustainability for farmers and farm systems, said an independent United Nations food expert at a New York Headquarters press conference today.

To create a true environment of religious tolerance and open dialogue, said the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief this afternoon, the method of communication and connection needed to be diverse and multi-faceted.