The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations-Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Joint Investigative Mechanism, the body mandated to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, for an additional year.
Unanimously adopting its annual resolution in support of the Government and people of Afghanistan, the General Assembly today heard expressions of alarm over recent spikes in civilian casualties and the influence of violent extremists, as speakers vowed to help the conflict-affected nation achieve its untapped potential.
Speakers in the Security Council this morning called for a stronger strategic partnership between the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on peace and security, particularly in relation to countering extremist ideology.
An intense discussion on the international legal standing of the death penalty and national sovereign rights to determine domestic judicial systems dominated Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, Cultural) proceedings today, as delegates approved an amended draft resolution calling for a moratorium on that practice, by a recorded 115 votes in favour to 38 against, with 31 abstentions.
The deterioration of South Sudan’s economy and the increasingly fragmented conflict in that country had placed it on a potential downward slide towards greater divisiveness and the risk of a full-scale civil conflict, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in that country told the Security Council this afternoon.
The Security Council today welcomed the signing of the National Strategy on Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and Repatriation, the National Security Policy, the Internal Security Forces Development Plan and the National Reconciliation Strategy by the Central African Republic.
Reporting that the consolidation of stability continued to progress in Kosovo but was threatened by tensions at both the community and higher political levels, the senior United Nations official there told the Security Council today that all reconciliation processes must ultimately reinforce each other.
Delegates at today's Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) meeting discussed a proposed cost-neutral restructuring of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), aimed at shifting more of the Office’s work from its headquarters in Geneva to existing and proposed regional offices.
The General Assembly this morning adopted, without a vote, a resolution that strongly encouraged Member States and national, regional and local education authorities to integrate education for democracy — along with civic education, human rights instruction and education for sustainable development — into their curricula and to strengthen programmes aimed at the promotion of democratic values.
Recognizing that the situation along the Sudan-South Sudan border remained a serious threat to international peace and security, the Security Council decided this afternoon to extend until 15 May 2017 the mandate of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).
