Meetings Coverage

The General Assembly this morning elected Vuk Jeremić, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, as President of its sixty-seventh session, voting by secret ballot for the first time in more than 20 years.

Wrapping up its resumed 2012 session this morning, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations adopted its draft 2012 report and took action on outstanding matters.

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea offered a unique, flexible framework for adapting to the Earth’s evolving political and environmental challenges, said experts today as the Meeting of States Parties marked World Oceans Day — commemorated annually on 8 June — and adopted a declaration on the occasion of the Convention’s thirtieth anniversary.

Resuming its 2012 organizational session today, the Economic and Social Council elected a Vice-President to its Bureau to fill the vacancy left by Maged Abdelaziz, the former Permanent Representative of Egypt, who had relinquished his post as Vice-President of the Council for 2012.

The Presidents and Prosecutors of the International Tribunals on serious crimes committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the 1994 Rwanda genocide told the Security Council today that they had recently made great strides in completing their work and ensuring a transfer of remaining tasks to a so-called “Residual Mechanism”.

In the wake of what United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described as yet another “shocking and sickening” massacre of civilians in Syria, senior United Nations and Arab League officials today joined forces “at a grave and grievous hour” to rally international support for envoy Kofi Annan’s faltering peace plan and press the Syrian Government and opposition groups to immediately end the violence.

The Security Council this morning decided to extend until 9 July 2013 the mandate of the Panel of Experts of its Committee to monitor the implementation of the sanctions regime against Iran, imposed in relation to the country’s nuclear programmes.

Concluding a protracted voting process, States parties to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea today elected Muhammad Arshad of Pakistan as a member of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf following eight rounds of voting that took place over two days.

The Central African Republic was at a critical juncture and it was essential for the international community to help it build on the momentum of recent progress on the political front, as well as in security and the reintegration of ex-combatants, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council today.

Adopting today an initial assessment of the first review of a joint strategy between the Government of Guinea and the Peacebuilding Commission to promote national reconciliation, reform the security sector, and provide job opportunities for women and young people, the Peacebuilding Commission agreed that the country’s political transition must culminate in the holding of free, transparent and politically and technically credible legislative elections.