UNITED
NATIONS
GENERAL
ASSEMBLY
News and Highlights from the President
President
met with the current President of the Security Council; met with the next
President which is Mexico; resumed session
of 3rd Committe; Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism
28 January 2002
The President of the
General Assembly, Dr. Han Seung-soo, is back in New York for a series
of meetings and for an
upcoming General Assembly plenary. This afternoon, he first met with the
current President of the Security Council and then
with the next President which is Mexico. On Thursday, he will preside
over a plenary of the Assembly during which he is
expected to launch the Olympic Appeal The text of the appeal is available
in document A/56/795. In addition, the plenary will
take up a draft resolution on the digital divide. Other items may be added.
On Thursday, there will also be an organizational
meeting of the Working Group on Security Council reform (previous report
contained in A/55/47).
The Third Committee
is meeting today, and will also meet on Thursday and Friday to take up
agenda item 117: Elimination of
racism and racial discrimination. The Committee had decided to defer the
discussion of this item pending the completion of the
report on the outcome of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
The report is contained in document A/CONF.189/12 and can be found on
the web site of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights www.unhchr.ch
The report, which
was done in Geneva, took some time to finalize due to consultations on
the placement in the text of certain
paragraphs.
The Ad Hoc Committee
established by Resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996, better known as
the Ad Hoc Committee on
International Terrorism, began a week-long session today. The Committee
last met from 12 to 23 February 2001 and is
expected to pick up where the Working Group on International Terrorism
left off in October. The report of the Working Group
is contained in document A/C.6/56/L.9. This and many other documents on
the issue can be found under “International Law”
on the UN website.
During a very brief
preparatory meeting last Wednesday, Mr. Corell, the UN Legal Counsel,
reminded the participants that the
mandate of the Committee is to continue to elaborate a draft comprehensive
convention on international terrorism and a draft
international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism
and that the Committee will keep on its agenda the
question of convening a high-level conference on terrorism. Following
the opening of the session, the Committee will go into
working group mode, in other words, closed meetings. This will be followed
by the preparation of the Committee’s report
which is expected to be adopted some time Friday.
Due to reassignments,
there have been some changes to the Bureau of the Committee. The new Bureau
has the following
composition:
Chairman: Mr. Rohan Perera, Sri Lanka
Vice-Chair: Mr. Carlos Fernando Diaz Paniagua, Costa Rica
Vice-Chair: Mr. Albert Hoffmann, South Africa
Vice-Chair: Mr. Richard Rowe, Australia
Rapporteur: Mr. Volodymyr Krokhmal, Ukraine