UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY - KEY ISSUES AT THE 68TH SESSION

• UN General Assembly - Key Issues at The 68th Session (Only for Online Coaching Members and Premium Members)

The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly ended on Oct 1, as its other meetings continued for a couple of weeks. The main debate ended on a heated address by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Piling pressure on Iran, Netanyahu said he did not believe the new President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, who had submitted that Iran was developing nuclear energy for peaceful and civilian purposes. Netanyahu said he would never accept nuclear weapons in the hands of a “rogue regime” or contemplate the threat of nuclear war against Israel, even if Israel had to stand alone against the whole world. On Palestine, he said he wanted a demilitarized Palestine, peaceful and existing as a state side by side with Israel, and a Palestine that would recognize Israel as Jewish state. On the “right to respond”, Iran said it had signed non-proliferation treaty on nuclear weapons (which it said Israel had not) and that its nuclear programme was under scrutiny and verifiable by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Chaired by the assembly President, Mr John Ashe (of Antigua and Barbuda), the 68th UN session ran under the theme “Post-2015 development agenda”. The session is one in series held annually since the first one held on January 10, 1946 in London, UK. Out of the ashes of the second world-war, which had ended a year earlier, the UN had just been formed to keep peace, to develop friendly relations among nations, to help nations work together to improve people’s lives, and to be the centre of harmonizing actions in achieving these tasks.

The UN consists of 5 bodies: General Assembly of 193 member countries, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, and International Court of Justice. The main theme was overshadowed by emerging and re-emerging issues of terrorism, chemical weapons, the targeting of African leaders by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ideology of “openness”, different world views about economic and social systems, UN reforms, and the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Israel/ Palestine, Armenia/Azerbaijan, and North / South Korea. On MDGs, most countries reported remarkable progress in all MDGs but acknowledged that the current MDGs did not cover all aspects of development. And even within the MDGs, there were numerous challenges and that they were an incomplete agenda.

The session is one in series held annually since the first one held on January 10, 1946 in London, UK. Out of the ashes of the second world-war, which had ended a year earlier, the UN had just been formed to keep peace, to develop friendly relations among nations, to help nations work together to improve people’s lives, and to be the centre of harmonizing actions in achieving these tasks. The UN consists of 5 bodies: General Assembly of 193 member countries, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, and International Court of Justice.

The main theme was overshadowed by emerging and re-emerging issues of terrorism, chemical weapons, the targeting of African leaders by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ideology of “openness”, different world views about economic and social systems, UN reforms, and the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Israel/ Palestine, Armenia/Azerbaijan, and North / South Korea.

Most countries condemned terrorism in “all its forms”, basing on the recent and fresh example of the Westgate hold-up in Kenya, which ended up in many deaths, injuries and destruction of property. They urged UN to put more effort on its role of “drug control, crime prevention, and combating terrorism”. UN’s other recently defined roles include promoting sustained economic growth and development, maintenance of peace, development of Africa, promotion of human rights, coordination of humanitarian assistance, promotion of justice and international law, and disarmament.

<< Go Back To Magazine Articles Main Page