The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today rejected one text and sent another six draft resolutions to the General Assembly, among them a draft that would have the world body urge States not to return a person to another State if he or she faced risks of being subjected to torture and to ensure that border control operations and reception centres fully complied with human rights.
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.
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.
United Nations Police were often viewed by local communities as the face of the Organization’s peacekeeping operations and contributed significantly to unarmed protection activities, Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told the Security Council today as it considered the challenges of policing under a mandate to protect civilians.
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.
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.
