As the Sixth Committee (Legal) met today to continue its consideration of the International Law Commission’s draft articles on “Crimes against humanity”, many delegates pointed to a gap in the existing international legal framework even as others differed on whether the articles are ready to be elaborated into a global agreement to bridge it.
The belief that the pursuit of nuclear weapons can guarantee the security of any State is a dangerous delusion, the United Nations disarmament chief told the Disarmament Commission at the opening of its 2024 annual session, as the body expanded its deliberation into emerging security threats, including the use of artificial intelligence in the military domain.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today concluded the first part of its resumed seventy-eighth session by sending the General Assembly seven decisions and resolutions, including its approval of funding a new institution tasked with finding the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons in Syria.
The Security Council today failed to adopt a resolution that would have extended until 30 April 2025 the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the Sanctions Committee established pursuant to resolution 1718 (2006) on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea due to a veto cast by the Russian Federation — a permanent member of the Council — while numerous speakers underscored that Moscow’s veto fuels suspicion and weakens the global non-proliferation architecture.
While the elections recently held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were largely peaceful, the security and humanitarian situation in its east has further deteriorated, the Security Council heard today from the Head of the peacekeeping mission in that country, as it begins its phased withdrawal after 25 years.
The Commission on the Status of Women met this morning to conclude its sixty-eighth session. After the closure of the sixty-eighth session, the Commission then briefly opened the sixty-ninth session.
While the humanitarian impact of the hostilities in Gaza has been cataclysmic and is worsening daily, violence and the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continue at alarming levels, the head of United Nations peace efforts in the Middle East told the Security Council today, as delegates raised concern over non-compliance with the organ’s demand for a ceasefire.
Ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of a resolution aiming to prevent non-State actors from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, the head of the Security Council Committee tasked with its implementation today briefed the organ on the work of that subsidiary body over the past year.
The Security Council today did not hold a meeting, requested by the Russian Federation, to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1999 aerial bombing campaign carried out by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against the former Yugoslavia, having failed to adopt the provisional agenda to do so after a procedural vote was requested by France.
The scourge of slavery has left a painful legacy through persisting inequities, as well as marginalization, dehumanization and brutality, speakers in the General Assembly emphasized today, underscoring the need for education about its causes and consequences, as well as for meaningful collective action to end its modern-day forms and build a more just world.
