Commending the Government of Togo for having abolished the death penalty and adopted a press code, experts of the Human Rights Committee expressed concern today at the number of draft laws awaiting passage in the National Assembly, especially a draft Criminal Code, and urged their adoption as soon as possible to prevent the perception that a lack of political will was interfering with much needed reform.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks to the General Assembly’s interactive dialogue with the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, today, 16 March, in New York:

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

With the election process gearing up and refugees flooding in from neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire, the increasingly complex situation in Liberia required sustained international attention, even though progress continued, Ellen Margrethe Løj, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, said today in a briefing to the Security Council.

Warning that the past century’s heedless resource consumption had left the world at an uncertain crossroads, senior United Nations officials and Government leaders today challenged the international community to define and urgently implement a practical, twenty-first century development model that could “connect the dots between the key issues of our time” — climate change, population growth, poverty and environmental stress — and build a resilient, sustainable future.

With its legislative, institutional and procedural mechanisms for protecting human rights meeting the highest European standards, Slovakia had made significant progress in implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Human Rights Committee heard today.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the launch of the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund's engagement in Guatemala, 16 March:

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at a meeting with regional leaders of Central America, in Guatemala City, 16 March:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on the inauguration of the monument in memory of Guatemalan soldiers who have lost their lives in the cause of peacekeeping, in Guatemala City, today, 17 March:

In order to facilitate what it called urgently needed humanitarian assistance in Somalia, the Security Council decided this morning to ease its assets freeze on the beleaguered Horn of Africa nation for 16 months.