The Security Council, meeting independently from but concurrently with the General Assembly, today elected the final judge for the International Court of Justice.  The vacancy had to be filled in February 2015, when the terms of five members would expire.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesman for UN Secretary‑General Ban Ki‑moon:

A regional legal assistance workshop on the Arms Trade Treaty will take place in Siem Reap, Cambodia, 18–19 November 2014.

The Economic and Social Council used the first day of a periodic management meeting to advance its wide-ranging work on economic, social and environmental issues by adopting several draft texts, accepting reports and filling vacancies on nearly a dozen of its own subsidiary bodies.

A spike in violence in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel showed once more that Palestinians and Israelis must make hard the compromises needed for a sustainable peace, a top political affairs official told the Security Council this morning.

As the General Assembly today took up the report of the Human Rights Council, nearly 30 delegations, the majority from developing countries, urged that body to guard against politicization of its work, with many calling for equal weight to be given to the right to development, as well as economic, social and cultural rights.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, as delivered by Michael Møller, Acting Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, to the Second Session of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee of the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, in Geneva, 17 November:

At its fifth formal meeting on 13 November 2014, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan met with representatives to the United Nations of the Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, and South Sudan to discuss the implementation of the measures (arms embargo, travel ban and assets freeze) imposed by the Security Council in relation to Darfur.

Concluding its sixty-ninth session, the Sixth Committee took action today on ten matters, and held to its tradition of approving texts and decisions without a vote, with the first of those a draft resolution on the report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for Africa Industrialization Day, to be observed on 20 November: