Meetings Coverage

Transnational crime, pandemics, and climate change were three defining challenges, and as the nature of such threats continued to evolve, the Security Council — so central to our ability to keep the peace — must also keep pace, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Council today as it addressed new challenges to international peace and security and conflict prevention.

Condemning and deploring all acts of piracy and armed robbery against vessels in the waters off the coast of Somalia, the Security Council today extended for 12 months its authorizations granted to States and regional organizations cooperating with the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia in the fight against such acts.

The General Assembly would urge States and international organizations to protect coral reefs and related ecosystems while implementing integrated and comprehensive approaches to their management, according to one of 12 texts approved without a vote in the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today.

Today, the Security Council, meeting concurrently with, but independently from, the General Assembly, once again failed in three rounds of balloting to elect a fifth Judge to the International Court of Justice.

A weeks-long stalemate to elect one member of the International Court of Justice continued today as, after four votes — bringing the total number of voting rounds in the General Assembly to 11 — no candidate received the absolute majority of votes in both the Assembly and the Security Council that was required to clinch the final seat on the World Court.

Strongly condemning the continued grave and systematic human rights violations by the Syrian authorities, the General Assembly would call for Syria to immediately put an end to all human rights violations, to protect their population and to fully comply with their obligations under international human rights law by a text approved by the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, at the conclusion of its current session.

The current calm and stability were paving a smooth road ahead to the “democracy fest” anticipated for Timor-Leste with next year’s landmark elections, the United Nations top representative for that country told the Security Council today, introducing the Secretary-General’s latest report on recent developments.

The General Assembly today adopted by consensus a wide-ranging resolution aimed at nudging Afghanistan further towards an economically and politically stable future, barely two years away from the Afghan Government’s target date for assuming the lead role for the war-torn country’s security.

The Third Committee today approved three resolutions that would have the General Assembly address human rights situations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Myanmar and Iran, even as delegations debated the legitimacy of country‑specific resolutions.

“Without a credible path forward, accompanied by more far-reaching steps on the ground,” Robert Serry, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today, “the viability of the Palestinian Authority and its State-building agenda — and, I fear, of the two-State solution itself — cannot be taken for granted”.