Category: UN INSIDER

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – For the first time in twelve years, the UN General Assembly has included – with the recorded vote of 113 in favour to 21 against, and 17 abstentions – “The Responsibility to Protect” in the agenda for its 72nd session that kicked off on September 12.

The protractors of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) consider it a global political commitment, which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Yet, as a “not an official record” of the General Assembly’s plenary on September 15 points out, several delegations took the floor to express their concerns about formally adding the item to the agenda.

By Julia Rainer

VIENNA (IDN) – “Smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons and contemporary forms of slavery, including appropriate identification, protection and assistance to migrants and trafficking victims,” was the title of the Fifth thematic session of the UN General Assembly hosted on September 4-5 by the United Nations Office in Vienna (UNOV).

The event aimed at supporting the inter-governmental process designed to lead to the adoption in 2018 of a global compact on safe, orderly and regular migration – a goal agreed by the member states when adopting the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants in September 2016.

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS (IDN) – Given the rampant technological changes taking place, it’s impossible to predict what the world will look like in even 20 years, and only the development of critical thinking and common civic values will help humankind to deal with the future.

That is the viewpoint of Sonia Dhillon Marty, head of a foundation that is seeking to “foster civic engagement” through art, architecture, design, sustainable farming and technology”, as she puts it. “If we are together, people will listen, politicians will listen,” Dhillon Marty said during a conference in Paris, September 12-13 at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Six days before the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose harsher sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), it received a far from encouraging report on the implementation of sanctions slammed so far.

The report submitted to the Council on September 5 by the UN Panel of Experts monitoring the implementation of Security Council sanctions against North Korea says: “Lax enforcement of the sanctions regime coupled with the country’s evolving evasion techniques are undermining the goals of the resolutions that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea abandon all weapons of mass destruction and cease all related programmes and activities.”

By Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General

The United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at a historic summit on September 25, 2015. While 114 Governments have requested support from country teams on implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world body’s “assessment clearly shows that the pace of progress is insufficient to fully meet that ambition.” Following are extensive excerpts from her remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the Sustainable Development Goals Dialogue in New York on September 8, 2017. – The Editor

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Two years have passed since the world came together to adopt a truly remarkable framework for common progress — the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Agenda is transformative and inspiring in its own right. That it was agreed at a time of severe political divisions on so many other issues was especially encouraging.

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has stressed the pressing need for increased diplomacy on vexatious global issues, broad adherence to the aims of the landmark Paris climate accord, wider engagement with the world’s youth and dedicated efforts to ensure gender parity across the UN system.

In an interview with UN News in the run-up to the 72nd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 72), which will convene at UN Headquarters in New York on September 12, Guterres said the UN “must be an instrument for a surge in diplomacy for peace.” Guterres, the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, and the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), took up his post on 1 January 1, 2017.

By Rita Joshi

BONN | ORDOS CITY (IDN) – A new strategy aimed at achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) by 2030 will be a major outcome of the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which opened in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, on September 6.

This is the first Conference hosted by China out of the three 1992 Earth Summit’s Rio Conventions – on biological diversity and Climate Change, according to UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut. The target to be achieved between 2018 and 2030 has indicators to measure change. It provides “an organizing principle that we can all rally behind and achieve a specific change.”

By Adriano José Timossi

The United Nations General Assembly adopted on 28 August 2017 a draft resolution calling for the organization of the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation to be held in Argentina in 2019. The Conference will mark the 40th anniversary of the first UN Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries also held in Buenos Aires almost forty years ago, a milestone event in the history of the UN and multilateralism.

GENEVA (IDN | SOUTHNEWS) – The United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus on August 28, 2017 the draft resolution titled Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation to be held in Buenos Aires from March 20 to 22, 2019.

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – When Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the Kremlin on July 4, 2017 they stressed the need for establishing a peace mechanism that would require North Korea to suspend its nuclear programme and the United States to halt military exercises and use of the anti-missile defence system in South Korea.

The Russian-Chinese Kremlin meeting came after North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), said it had successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting Alaska, the largest and most sparsely populated U.S. state in the northwest of Canada.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Global warming is expected to have a significant impact on future yields of everything from rice to fish, particularly in countries situated closer to the equator, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned, and urged the Asia-Pacific economies to take a leading role in adaptation and mitigation.

“Many APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] economies have already felt the full force of agricultural losses from natural disasters in recent years, with the vast majority of these being climate related,” said Kundhavi Kadiresan, Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, reported UN News.