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"Given
the challenges we faced at the beginning and throughout
the session, what we have been able to achieve together,
and the ambitious agenda we have set ourselves for the remainder
of the session," President Julian Hunte said, "it
is safe to say that this session has thus far been nothing
short of extraordinary".
One
important priority was addressing the challenges to sustainable
development.
On
22 September, the General Assembly convened a High-level
plenary meeting on HIV/AIDS, to assess the worldwide fight
against HIV/AIDS, two years after Member States agreed to
a time-bound set of targets to roll back the disease. One
hundred thirty-six speakers, among them nineteen heads of
state participated in the one-day high-level plenary. The
President of the Assembly then urged interventions that
go hand in hand with policies that address poverty, socio-economic
development, human welfare and social cohesion.
On the same Development priorities, he chaired on 21 October
2003, a Panel Discussion on International Cooperation in
Tax Matters as taxation is one of the major instruments
of domestic resource mobilization.
On
27 October 2003, in the same perspective, President Julian
Hunte also chaired an Open-ended Panel on commodities. More
than one quarter of the United Nations 191 member states
rely on commodity exports for more than fifty per cent of
their export earnings.
On 29 October, the Assembly opened a two-day high level
dialogue on Implementation of Financing for Development
Commitments. The aim of the Dialogue was to re-energize
the global community's focus on issues relating to trade,
aid, debt, investment and the international financial architecture
President
Hunte feels that the priorities on Globalization and trade
liberalization issues including commodities trading and
corporate accountability were properly put in focus during
these meetings.
On
one major priority: the revitalization of the General
Assembly, President Julian Hunte assisted by a team
of Facilitators, began in October, a process of consultations
to determine a course of action for revitalization of the
United Nations General Assembly. Three informal open-ended
plenary meetings, on 15 of October, 18 November and 12 December,
as well as the 27-31 October debate on Item 55, "Revitalization
of the Work of the General Assembly" provided the platform
for expression of views, comments on proposals and broad
discussion of the revitalization issue in general. A consensus
resolution was adopted on December 19 as a means of ensuring
that the General Assembly can effectively meet contemporary
global challenges.
In
the field of peace and security, another one of the
priorities established by the Fifty-eighth session was to
address the situation in the Middle East. This issue was
brought three times to the General Assembly during the first
part of the session in the form of requests to resume the
10th Emergency Session on Palestine, after a majority of
member states were dissatisfied over a US veto in the Security
Council : On 19 September 2003, on 21 October 2003 and on
8 December 2003, when the Assembly, meeting in a resumption
of its tenth emergency session on Palestine, adopted a resolution
asking the International Court of Justice to urgently render
an opinion on the construction of the wall being built by
Israel. On 19 December, the principal judicial body of the
United Nations, the ICJ, decided to open hearings next February
on the legal consequences of Israel's construction of a
separation barrier in the occupied Palestinian territory.
See details in Press
release GA/10226>>
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