Meetings Coverage

Unleashing the potential of rural women — a quarter of the world’s population — was critical to ending global poverty and hunger, high-level speakers said today as the Commission on the Status of Women opened its fifty-sixth annual session. “Empowering women is not just good for women, it is good for all of us,” Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

The General Assembly today adopted a resolution on reform of the human rights treaty body system and elected three judges from a pool of six candidates to the United Nations Appeals Tribunal for terms of seven years, beginning 1 July.

Deeply concerned about incidents, trends and patterns of sexual violence in armed conflict and post conflict situations, the Security Council today condemned such violence, as well as all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and urged the complete and immediate cessation of such acts.

In a message to the first meeting of the 2012 substantive session of the Special Committee on Decolonization, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today for “constructive involvement” between the Committee, the administering Powers and the Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) at current levels until 31 December and endorsed its phased drawdown in accordance with the Government’s wishes, conditions on the ground and following the successful completion of the 2012 electoral process.

The Security Council today, welcoming the relocation of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Somalia and the United Nations Political Office (UNPOS) to its capital and commending the contribution of the African Union Mission (AMISOM) to lasting peace and stability in the country, requested that operation to increase, by more than 5,000, its troops and formed police units.

Timor-Leste’s capital of Dili was a bustling city where peace was palpable and the people were committed to ensuring it in 2012 and beyond, the country’s President, José Ramos-Horta, told the Security Council this afternoon, adding that building peace must be block by block, community by community.

Fuelled by more than $150 million in ransom payments last year, Somali-based pirates were extending their deadly reach farther out into the Indian Ocean, senior United Nations officials said today, as they urged the Security Council to consider a full range of legal, judicial and preventive measures to thwart their brazen attacks.

Praise and criticism over perceived triumphs and failures peppered demands for clearly defined mandates, sustained funding, entry and exit strategies and strict compliance with core principles as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations concluded its general debate today.