Through the direct engagement of its Member States, the General Assembly had been able to respond promptly to many important and serious situations during its current session, the President of the 193-nation body said today at a Headquarters press conference on a wide range of issues, including the upcoming Rio summit on sustainable development, the crisis in Syria, and combating violence against women.
General Assembly: Press Conference
The past six months had seen an active, responsive General Assembly that had been relevant in addressing many of the key global issues of concern to all, its President, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser (Qatar), said at Headquarters today, pledging a redoubling of efforts to achieve success on all remaining matters on the organ’s agenda in the remaining six months of its current session.
From being increasingly vocal on human rights to taking decisions on tackling non-communicable diseases, the General Assembly had taken great strides in its current session during an “eventful and demanding” year for the United Nations, the Assembly President told journalists today at Headquarters. Speaking at a year-end press conference, Nasser Abdulaziz al-Nasser outlined some of the achievements made over the first three months of his tenure.
Broader involvement and greater engagement had driven forward the latest round of talks on reforming the Security Council, the Chair of the negotiations on that process said at Headquarters today.
Faiza Patel, Chair of the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination, told correspondents today about the Working Group’s visits to Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and Iraq.
An overhaul of inequitable agricultural business models was needed to reduce global poverty and ensure long-term sustainability for farmers and farm systems, said an independent United Nations food expert at a New York Headquarters press conference today.
Among several concerns about the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman highlighted today the food security situation there, as well as the situation of asylum-seekers from that country.
To create a true environment of religious tolerance and open dialogue, said the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief this afternoon, the method of communication and connection needed to be diverse and multi-faceted.
With a nascent national human rights mechanism and freshly stated commitments to freedom and the rule of law, Myanmar stood poised to end its persistent patterns of rights violations and to consolidate democratic gains, said a top human rights expert at a Headquarters press conference today.
A pattern of violations had emerged regarding Iran’s treatment of civil society actors — including political dissidents – that spoke to unfair trials and the targeting of human rights defenders, and the best strategy for substantially improving those conditions was not to penalize the Government, but rather engage it in dialogue that would evolve over time, said the United Nations special investigator on that country.