Meetings Coverage

During the concluding discussion in the Sixth Committee (Legal) on the subject of measures to eliminate international terrorism, delegates today repeatedly illustrated that no country or State in the world was immune from terrorism, and that it now was imperative to finalize the draft articles of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

The United Nations could no longer “turn a blind eye” to the risks posed by a failed State in the Western Sahara, as that would jeopardize global security, the Fourth Committee heard today, as petitioners for Western Sahara, New Caledonia, Guam, Turks and Caicos, and the United States Virgin Islands took the floor in the decolonization debate.

Taking up the wide-ranging reports of the Office of International Oversight Services (OIOS) and the Independent Audit Advisory Committee, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon strongly supported the recent efforts and progress of those two crucial oversight bodies in strengthening the accountability and transparency of United Nations activities.

Although the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) region had enjoyed a “golden decade” of growth and development in the late 1990s and up to 2008, it had been hit harder by the “great recession” than any other, Executive Secretary Ján Kubiš told the Second Committee today.

As democratic movements drove political change in North Africa and the Middle East, and as new economic powers transformed the geopolitical landscape, the United Nations, to maintain its respected stature, must define effective, multifaceted strategies suited for a new era, General Assembly delegates said today as they considered the Secretary-General’s report on the Organizations’ work.

Austerity measures adopted by developed countries to address the current economic upheaval hurt global growth and pushed millions more into poverty just when greater social protection was needed, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) was told today.

In terms of the work of the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), it is clear that “we should not close up shop and wait for the dawning of world peace as a precondition for disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control to succeed”, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, told Member States, opening the Committee’s general debate for the session.

Decolonization was one of the most defining issues of the latter part of the twentieth century, and the untiring efforts of United Nations had ensured that nearly all of the world’s population no longer lived under colonial rule, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) was told as it began its annual general debate on that issue.

As the Sixth Committee (Legal) today considered measures to eliminate international terrorism, delegates commemorated the tenth anniversary of the events of 11 September 2001, and urged a conclusion to the draft articles of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that would clearly define terrorism and address its root causes.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the second meeting of its sixty-sixth session with a discussion on the scale of assessments, several delegates raised a red flag over revising the complex methodology used to set the scale if the changes boosted the contributions of developing countries.