Meetings Coverage

With less than three months remaining before the referendum in the south, the whole of Sudan was entering a crucial period, Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told the Security Council today in a briefing that covered the situations in both Southern Sudan and Darfur.

The Economic and Social Council met this afternoon to adopt the procedures for electing members to the Executive Board of the new United Nations gender entity, and to fill vacancies in three of its subsidiary bodies.

The General Assembly today elected 18 members of the Economic and Social Council to serve three-year terms beginning 1 January 2011. Those elected today were Australia, Cameroon, China, Ecuador, Finland, Gabon, Hungary, Latvia, Malawi, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Senegal and the United Kingdom.

Mounting concerns that advances in ballistic missile defence technology and recognition of the inherent instability — possible arms race in space and cascading proliferation on Earth — that could result from the pursuit of space weapons for security informed the debate in the Disarmament Committee today, which heard the introduction of two draft resolutions on the domain long hoped would be preserved for peaceful purposes to the benefit of all humankind.

As the Sixth Committee (Legal) began its annual review of the report of the International Law Commission today, the Committee Chairperson, Isabelle Picco (Monaco), welcomed the presence of legal advisers from numerous capitals and expressed her confidence that their participation would enrich the debate on the Commission’s work.

There was no greater sign of a Member State’s commitment to collective security than the willingness to send its nationals into harm’s way under the United Nations flag, Fourth Committee delegates heard today as their Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) entered day two of their annual discussion of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects.

Recent actions by the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council recognizing a human right to water and sanitation were a “breakthrough” and the challenge now was to turn that right into a reality for the billions of people throughout the world who still lacked access, a United Nations expert told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today.

While approving a draft decision on the administration of justice at the United Nations, delegates of the Sixth Committee (Legal) this morning also discussed activities of the legal Programme of Assistance, and called for its funding from the United Nations regular budget, since the rule of law had steadily emerged as a universal aspiration.

United Nations experts charged with examining the human rights of migrants told the Third Committee today that over the past two years the trend towards the “increasing criminalization” of irregular migration had continued, with migrants facing racist attacks, abuse and “appalling” housing conditions throughout the world.

United Nations peacekeeping was a dynamic and essential element of the international community’s response to global peace and security threats, but success was never guaranteed because peacekeeping, almost by definition, went to the most physically and politically demanding environments, and the process faced rapidly diminishing resources, overstretch and the need for greater consensus, said the United Nations Peacekeeping Chief today in the Fourth Committee.