Today’s violent conflicts, most recently marked by terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut and Baghdad, were often rooted in a mix of exclusion, inequality and governance failures, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council today, urging a greater focus on prevention, human rights and coherence among all actors to address problems which, when allowed to fester, led to large-scale atrocity.
Delegates at today’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) meeting aired their concerns on the financing of the proposed renovation of the historic Palais des Nations in Geneva – estimated to tally nearly $1 billion - and the Secretariat’s first year of work in carrying out a comprehensive information and communications technology strategy.
Concluding its work for the main part of the General Assembly’s seventieth session today, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) approved nine draft resolutions — all by recorded vote — relating to Palestine refugees and Israeli practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As the Human Rights Council was moving into its tenth year, its record had testified to a high level of responsiveness while it continued to be actively engaged in cases of urgent and chronic violations, that body’s president told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today while presenting its annual report during an interactive dialogue the preceded a general discussion.
Challenges to the international community’s human rights mainstay were debated today as the General Assembly took up the reports of the Human Rights Council’s sessions this year. Hearing from just over two dozen speakers expressing fellow feeling with citizens of Paris, Beirut and Baghdad in the wake of devastating terrorist attacks in those cities, delegates discussed the way forward for advancing human rights around the world for every individual.
Prior to approving without a vote two draft resolutions, the Sixth Committee (Legal) noted improvements in relations with the host country and stressed the key role of the General Assembly in the revitalization of the United Nations, as they considered reports on both matters.
As the international community approached a critical juncture in the five-year-long Syrian crisis, its focus must remain on protecting civilians and ensuring they enjoyed unimpeded access to humanitarian aid, senior United Nations officials emphasized as they briefed the Security Council today.
The Security Council requested today that the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals present, by Friday, 20 November, its report on the progress of work in its initial four-year period, and that the related informal working group examine that report, so that a mandated review of the Mechanism would be complete by 21 December.
Prior to approving without a vote the request for Observer status in the General Assembly for the Union for the Mediterranean, the Sixth Committee (Legal) today heard oral reports of its three working groups, noting once again that delegations had been unable to conclude a draft comprehensive convention on measures to eliminate international terrorism, a situation the Chair lamented.
The General Assembly today adopted two resolutions submitted by its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) and appointed members to three of its subsidiary bodies.
