Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly today adopted two resolutions submitted by its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) and appointed members to three of its subsidiary bodies.

Sounding a united call for future reports of the Security Council to the General Assembly to be more analytical and less descriptive, a score of non-Council Member States today addressed specific conflict situations, as well as cross-cutting issues affecting cooperation between the Council and other organs of the United Nations.

The Security Council today strongly condemned increasing killings, torture and other human rights violations in Burundi, and stated its intention to consider “additional measures” against all actors whose actions and statements impeded the search for a peaceful solution to the crisis in the East African nation.

The Economic and Social Council today adopted one draft decision on the distribution of seats for experts in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, deferred action on the theme for the Council’s integration segment in 2016, and filled vacancies in some subsidiary bodies.

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved three resolutions today, one of them reaffirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the population of occupied Syrian Golan over their land, water and energy resources.

A draft resolution that would see the General Assembly address the global refugee crisis and the role of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was among four texts approved today without a vote by the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).

Unanimously approving a draft resolution on special political missions today, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) also concluded its general debate on Israel’s practices in occupied Arab territories, with delegations condemning its blockade of the Gaza Strip, violence by settlers and other human rights violations.

After concluding deliberations on the third and final cluster of topics in the report of the International Law Commission, the Sixth Committee (Legal) today approved without a vote two draft resolutions, the first on the report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and the second on the United Nations Programme of Assistance in the Teaching, Study, Dissemination and Wider Appreciation of International Law.

Domestic resource mobilization and taxation were crucial to achieving sustainable development, several panellists stressed today at a joint meeting of the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) and the Economic and Social Council.

Disturbing evidence of continued human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories further underscored the need for Israel to end its long-standing occupation, speakers in the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) stressed today, as that body opened its annual debate on that country’s illegal practices in occupied lands.