Meetings Coverage

Continuing its annual session this morning, the Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea decided to nominate States with a permanent diplomatic or consular presence in Berlin or Hamburg as a member and alternate member of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea’s Staff Pension Committee.

The United Nations Security Council today reasserted its strong condemnation of the recruitment, killing, maiming, raping and other abuse of children during armed conflict, and expressed its readiness to take targeted measures against persistent perpetrators of those crimes.

The easy availability of firearms multiplied the probability of death or grave violations of human rights in communities around the world and, as in warding off a disease, in preventing armed violence these communities must build up resistance and reduce their exposure to the vector of injury — the gun, delegates were told today, as the Fourth Biennial Meeting on combating the illicit small arms and light weapons trade reached the halfway mark of its week-long session.

Resuming its 2010 session this morning, the Special Committee on Decolonization approved requests for hearings from several Non-Self-Governing Territories in the coming days, with a petitioner from Gibraltar asserting that 50 years after the General Assembly had passed its historic resolution 1514 (XV), which called for the immediate transfer of power from all colonized Territories to their peoples, an assessment of the overall decolonization process was needed.

Echoing the Secretary-General’s view that a solution to the situation in Cyprus was “well within reach”, the Security Council this morning extended the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force there, known as UNFICYP, for a further six months, until 15 December 2010.

Continuing its annual session today, the Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea heard a briefing by the President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, on that body’s draft budget proposals for 2011-2012, financial reports for the 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 periods, and adjustments to the remuneration of its judges.

Fine-tuning existing tools to stem the flow of the nefarious illicit arms trade topped a volley of suggestions that were the focus of debate today as the Fourth Biennial Meeting of States on combating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons continued.

The current Gaza crisis must be turned into an opportunity for real change on the ground while proximity talks were sustained with a view to holding direct talks as soon as possible, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council this morning. “This body clearly stated two weeks ago that the situation in Gaza is not sustainable,” said Robert Serry in the regular briefing on the Middle East conflict.

An integrated approach to stability in Sudan, linking peace in Darfur to preparations for the January referendum on the future of Southern Sudan, was presented to the Security Council by officials of the United Nations and the African Union this morning.

“The global scourge from the illicit trade in small arms and ammunition continues to wreak havoc” and was highly destabilizing, impacting upon security and development in literally all regions of the world, Sergio Duarte, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said today at the opening of the Fourth Biennial Meeting of States on combating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.