The year 2023 witnessed a three-decade high in the number of conflicts worldwide, even before simmering situations such as those in Sudan and the Occupied Palestinian Territory boiled over. In the face of escalating violence, however, consensus proved elusive in the Security Council, with its veto-casting permanent members — primarily the United States and the Russian Federation — impeding swift, effective action to address deteriorating situations around the world.
The international community “seems incapable of coming together” to respond to intensifying crises, pushing the multilateral system into dysfunction and deadlock in a more fragmented world, the United Nations Secretary-General warned this September at the annual high-level General Assembly debate.
The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its fifty-ninth session at United Nations Headquarters, from 4 October to 21 November.
The resumed thirty-third Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, presided over by Cornel Ferută (Romania), was held at Headquarters on 28 November.
NEW YORK, 23 August (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) — The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its fifty-eighth session at United Nations Headquarters, from 5 July to 22 August.
The thirty-third Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was held at Headquarters from 12 to 15 June.
The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its fifty-seventh session at United Nations Headquarters, from 23 January to 10 March.
As the Security Council fully resumed in-person meetings, the invasion of Ukraine at the start of the year by the Russian Federation — a permanent, veto-wielding member of the Council — plunged the 15-nation organ into a fractious new normal, widening pre-existing rifts, making consensus more laborious than ever to achieve and impeding efforts to fulfil their responsibility in maintaining international peace and security.
Speaking at the largest General Assembly gathering since the COVID-19 pandemic halted in-person events and devastated global travel some three years ago, world leaders this September called on the international community to unite in the face of the conflict in Ukraine, global climate emergency, and emerging food, fuel and cost-of-living crises.
The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its fifty-sixth session at United Nations Headquarters, from 5 October to 22 November.
