Meetings Coverage

The Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice had put the world’s criminal justice system on trial, but the case could be dismissed for lack of evidence, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Director-General of the Organization’s Vienna Office, said today, as the event’s high-level segment continued in Salvador, Brazil.

Delegates at a special, three-day segment of the Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice urged members this afternoon to take concrete action in the next five years, building upon “spectacular breakthroughs” on controversial issues relating to the prosecution, sentencing and custody of offenders, and on a possible new treaty on emerging forms of transnational offences such as cybercrime.

After three weeks of intensive deliberations, the Disarmament Commission had not succeeded in distinguishing its 2010 session from its previous meetings over the past 11 years, that body’s Chair said today as it concluded its annual substantive session.

Concerned that 9 million children under 5 years old died each year from largely preventable conditions, and that persistent health inequities, both among and within countries, were impeding improved health outcomes, the Commission on Population and Development today concluded its forty-third session by reaffirming the values of primary health care -– including universal access to services -- as the basis for strengthening health systems.

SALVADOR, Brazil, 16 April -- An overhaul of criminal justice systems in countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe was needed to reduce inhumane overcrowding in prisons ‑‑ a major cause of recidivism which did nothing to improve public safety, speakers said today as the Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice continued in Salvador, Brazil.

The Security Council today emphasized the critical importance of post-conflict peacebuilding as the “foundation for building sustainable peace and development in the aftermath of conflict”, and highlighted the need for effective peacebuilding strategies to ensure durable peace and development.

Expressing optimism that obstacles to a comprehensive anti-terrorism convention could finally be overcome, members of the General Assembly committee negotiating that text recommended this morning that the Assembly’s Sixth Committee (Legal) establish a working group for that purpose during its sixty-fifth session.

Decrying the “appalling” circumstances believed to affect roughly 10 million detainees worldwide, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture today described massive differences in the treatment of prisoners, and called, alongside other experts, for stiffer measures to improve prison conditions and ensure full respect for basic human rights standards, as the Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice continued in Salvador, Brazil.

The General Assembly, meeting today to act on a number of outstanding resolutions and make appointments to two of its subsidiary bodies, also paid solemn tribute to Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed along with his wife and 94 others in a high-level military and civilian delegation, when the presidential plane crashed on landing outside the western Russian city of Smolensk.

Despite their systematic marginalization over centuries, women formed the very foundation of the world’s economy and development, the Commission on Population and Development was told today as it debated how population and development issues contributed in turn to gender equality and women’s empowerment.