Meetings Coverage

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the deployment of an assessment mission to the Gulf of Guinea region in order examine the scope of the increasing threat of piracy in the Gulf, and to make recommendations on anti-piracy, including in the broader context of organized crime and drug trafficking.

Recent events unfolding across the Middle East and North Africa underscored the pressing need to bolster human rights as the third pillar — alongside security and development — of the United Nations, the High Commissioner for Human Rights told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today.

Gathering this morning to evaluate the work of the Economic and Social Council in 2011, General Assembly delegates upheld the 54-member body’s importance while urging that its coordination functions be strengthened, that it more fully address “hard core economic issues”, and press for reform of the global financial and economic system.

While there was no longer any doubt that globalization was impacting every country on the planet, the costs and benefits of this new era of interconnectedness should be more equally shared, delegates in the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) said today as they took up their agenda item on globalization and interdependence.

The Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Torture today proposed to the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) a worldwide ban on the practice of prolonged solitary confinement, which had increased throughout the globe, especially in the context of the “war on terror” and “threats to national security”.

As the Sixth (Legal) Committee today considered the law of transboundary aquifers, delegates said that the elaboration of sound international principles that provide guidelines for the proper stewardship of cross-border aquifers was ever more relevant given the growing global demand for freshwater.

By broadening the use of different media platforms including traditional means of communication, as well as new media, and partners in outreach, the United Nations Under‑Secretary‑General for Communications and Public Information, Kiyo Akasaka, today told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), his Department was fulfilling its mission to “inform, engage [and] act.”

Broadening arms control, reducing surplus weapons stockpiles and increasing transparency over sales and transfers dominated debate in the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today, as delegates sought to rally support around several draft resolutions aimed at staunching the flow of readily available, easy-to-use instruments of modern violence — conventional weapons.

With nearly 1.5 billion people still living in absolute poverty, eradication efforts had not succeeded and it remained the most significant challenge facing humankind, delegates in the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) said today.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today directed its attention to a wide range of human resources management issues — from the geographical make-up of the Secretariat’s tens of thousands of staff to the ethical rules guiding the everyday decisions of employees at all levels — as Secretariat officials introduced more than a half dozen reports.