Meetings Coverage

“Working with you,” Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, told the Fourth Committee today as it opened its yearly consideration of questions relating to information, “we can, through action and message, help to sustain — or to win — the engagement and support of the peoples you represent.”

United Nations officials and experts on mission who committed serious crimes tarnished the Organization’s credibility and must be held accountable, delegates told the Sixth Committee today as they took up the Secretary-General’s report on the matter.

Tackling seemingly intractable disarmament and non-proliferation problems with “virtually moribund” disarmament machinery signalled an urgent need to “breathe new life” into attempts to remove the roadblocks, said delegates today in the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), concluding the general debate segment of the session.

The improved situation in Mali had “opened new prospects” for the West African country’s recovery from near collapse in 2012, but the security situation remained fragile amid asymmetric attacks by extremists and tensions within the Armed Forces, the senior United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today.

Child deaths had fallen dramatically from 12 million a year in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011, but 18,000 children were still dying every day, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, urging States to design policies and programmes targeted at “hard-to-reach” populations, such as children in armed conflict.

Free trade, increased investment, debt relief and efficient governance should lead the global response to development challenges, the representative of Saint Lucia said today as the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) took up macroeconomic policy.

The ideal of a world where accountability was the expectation, and not the exception, had become a reality, despite challenges of arresting fugitives and staff retention, the General Assembly heard today as the Presidents of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for Former Yugoslavia presented their annual reports.

The need for amended national criminal codes to address domestic violence and the related crime of “femicide”, as well as calls for more women to participate in the political life, dominated discussion in the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, as it continued its general discussion on the advancement of women.

Reiterating its conviction of the need for the eradication of colonialism, the Fourth Committee today concluded its annual consideration of the question of decolonization, and forwarded 11 draft resolutions to the General Assembly, six of them approved without a vote.

The highlight of its summer session had been the adoption of the Rules on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration, stated Michael Schöll, Chair of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, as the Sixth Committee took up the Commission’s report.