Meetings Coverage

The rule of law and not the rule of power should be promoted in dealing with issues related to disarmament and international security, and exclusive and discriminatory approaches should be avoided, the First Committee heard today as it continued its annual general debate.

While the United Nations had seen breakthroughs in its efforts to serve the poor and empower women, the Organization must harness its convening power to achieve a binding climate agreement, ensure respect for basic rights of self-determination and, above all, reform its key structures to reflect current geopolitical realities, General Assembly delegates stressed today as they considered the Secretary-General’s report on the work of the Organization.

As the Sixth Committee today took up the question of measures to eliminate international terrorism, delegates both called for the conclusion of the draft comprehensive convention while at the same time expressing concern that the finalization of the draft convention not be at the expense of international law, humanitarian law and the core tenets of the United Nations Charter.

Questions of five Non-Self-Governing Territories were still mired in inaction, with few taking seriously enough the need to preserve a people’s voice and self-determination in a world where few had either, the Fourth Committee heard today, as petitioners for New Caledonia, Guam, Turks and Caicos, United States Virgin Islands, and Western Sahara took the floor in the decolonization debate.

With global crises and the destructive effects of climate change continuing to threaten not only global socio-economic development, but also the world’s very existence, developed countries must assume their “historic responsibility” to help their developing counterpart bridge existing imbalances and gaps, many speakers said today, as the Second Committee continued its general debate.

It was a conundrum that, while the international community professed a desire for greater progress on disarmament to secure a safer world, it allowed outdated mechanisms at the disposal of Member States to deliver stalemates instead of the advancement of that objective, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today as it continued its general debate.

The residual impact of the global economic and financial crisis, fuel crisis and food crisis was high on the minds of speakers in the Third Committee today, with several of them noting how the aftershocks have impeded progress towards achieving social development and the Millennium Development Goals.

“If major steps forward in disarmament are postponed indefinitely, if questions persist of compliance with non-proliferation commitments, and if military spending continues to rise while Millennium Development Goals continue to be unmet, then our potential contributions will be correspondingly limited,” the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, warned the Disarmament Committee today, as it began its general debate.

Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, appealed to the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) to put social integration and cohesion at the heart of its work, as it opened its session today with a debate on social development.

Opening the second meeting of its sixty-fifth session with a discussion on the scale of assessments, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today heard delegates stress the need for all Member States to fulfil their legal obligations to the Organization by making their payments on time and in full.