Meetings Coverage

Violence against children, and ways to stem that violence, figured prominently in a discussion between Member States and United Nations officials from the field of child rights, at the start of a multi-day discussion on the promotion and protection of the rights of children convened by the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).

The Commission on the Status of Women ‑‑ the United Nations’ principal policymaking body dedicated to gender equality and women’s advancement ‑‑ today elected by acclamation Garen Nazarian, of Armenia, as Chairperson of its fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth sessions.

Establishing an international day to raise awareness of the deadly dangers of nuclear weapons would be a step towards the noble goal of the complete elimination of those weapons, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) heard today, as two related draft resolutions were introduced and a decision was announced to hold back a third.

Member States praised the work of the Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC) this morning, as they took up issues related to programme planning in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary).

As the Sixth Committee (Legal) this morning addressed the issue of criminal accountability of United Nations officials and experts on missions, the debate centred on impunity, language regarding scope of accountability and the need for an international convention.

The Security Council this morning extended the mandate of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti through 15 October 2010 and adjusted its force configuration to better meet current requirements on the ground.

Countries must step up efforts to address essential, but unresolved issues in advance of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Robert Orr, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Strategic Planning, today told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) during a panel discussion on “Climate Change Negotiations: Road to Copenhagen”.

While the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) had broken new ground in many areas ‑‑ including clarifying the concept of sexual and reproductive health and setting a quantitative goal for universal delivery of such services ‑‑ substantial progress must be made to stop women from dying of preventable pregnancy-related causes, delegates in the General Assembly stressed today, as they concluded their two-day commemoration of the Conference.

In promoting women’s empowerment it was critical that the international community systematically link women to the development agenda, speakers told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, as it continued its discussion on the advancement of women.

Efforts to stem the spread of violence and armed conflict had found intergovernmental allies from areas as diverse as agricultural development to global financing, greatly boosting the chances of eventually achieving disarmament goals, the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, told the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) today.