Legal

The International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA, today released new figures showing that renewables accounted for over 90 per cent of total power expansion globally in 2024. As in previous years, most of the increase occurred in Asia, with the greatest share being contributed by China.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message on the fiftieth anniversary of the Biological Weapons Convention, today:

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court briefed the Security Council today on the imminent new applications for arrest warrants concerning the ongoing violence in Darfur, underscoring the need to reinforce the bond between the two bodies.

Following the resignation of Judge Nawaf Salam of the International Court of Justice on 14 January 2025, the Security Council today set the date for an election to fill this vacancy.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Elinor Jane Britt Hammarskjöld of Sweden as Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel. She succeeds Miguel de Serpa Soares of Portugal, to whom the Secretary-General is deeply grateful for his dedicated service and long-standing commitment to the Organization.

As the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) completes its work, Member States must cooperate with the international court and each other to ensure the completion of the “cycle of justice” for the victims and survivors of war crimes and other atrocities committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, speakers heard today as the Security Council received briefings from the Mechanism’s top officials.

While supporting the Secretariat’s request for $62.3 million to keep the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals running smoothly in 2025, some delegates at the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today voiced concerns with the uneven impact upcoming cutbacks would have on the Mechanism’s operations in Arusha.

Acting today on the recommendations of its Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) and Sixth Committee (Legal), the General Assembly today adopted a total of 65 texts, including 49 resolutions and 16 decisions addressing a wide range of international concerns tackling, among others, the effects of atomic radiation and support for the Palestinian refugee agency, as well as the codification of two international binding treaties on crimes against humanity and the protection of persons in disasters.

Concluding its seventy-ninth session today, the Sixth Committee (Legal) approved, without a vote, 16 draft texts — one of which saw the Committee, in a historic process of informal discussions, able to maintain its tradition of consensus as it launched the process to negotiate an international convention to govern the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.

In his bi-annual briefing today to the Security Council on the situation in Libya, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) urged Member States’ cooperation in executing arrest warrants against those suspected of war crimes committed in the town of Tarhuna, spotlighting the recent unsealing of arrest warrants for individuals linked to the Al Kaniyat militia, and Libyan authorities’ collaboration to pursue accountability.