HIGHLIGHTS OF PRESS BRIEFING BY BRENDEN VARMA, SPOKESPERSON FOR GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT MIROSLAV LAJČÁK

United Nations Headquarters, New York

16 November 2017

 

CONFLICT PREVENTION SAVES LIVES, PRESIDENT TO TELL PEACEBUILDING GATHERING

  • The President is returning to New York from Bonn this afternoon, and he will be attending a retreat this evening organized by the UN Peacebuilding Support Office and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.
  • He will be briefing fellow attendees, including the Secretary-General, on his “Roadmap for Sustaining Peace”. The purpose of the roadmap is to focus efforts and build momentum ahead of the President’s high-level meeting on peacebuilding and sustaining peace, which he will convene on 24 and 25 April.
  • The roadmap will consist of a number of initiatives, including meetings, workshops and field visits to Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Europe.
  • The President expects to make the case tonight that focusing on preventing conflict – as opposed to responding to it once it has already broken out – can save countless lives as well as billions of dollars for the international community.

 

$1.5 MILLION NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT MYANMAR HUMAN RIGHTS RESOLUTION

  • Today, the General Assembly’s Third Committee adopted a draft resolution on the human rights situation in Myanmar by a vote of 135 in favour to 10 against with 26 abstentions.
  • Yesterday, the United Nations Secretariat came up with an estimate of how much it would cost to implement this draft resolution. It found that, should the General Assembly adopt it, an amount of $1,541,100 would be required for 2018. That money would be used to fund the Office of the Special Envoy on Myanmar, which the draft resolution proposes in paragraph 10.
  • Given the budgetary implications, the draft resolution will now be considered by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) and then the Fifth Committee, which handles budgetary matters – before going to the General Assembly plenary in December.
  • Asked whether the President would try to increase the role of the General Assembly in addressing the plight of the Rohingya community, the Spokesperson noted that the President considered the Rohingya situation to be a human tragedy. He also noted that various parts of the United Nations, including the Security Council and the Secretary-General, were already engaged on the matter. For his part, the President had held meetings on the Rohingya issue with a number of interlocutors, including Bangladeshi officials, and he would continue to monitor the situation closely.

 

WORLD COURT ELECTIONS TO CONTINUE ON MONDAY AFTERNOON

  • On the election for the last remaining vacancy in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the General Assembly will meet on this matter on Monday at 3:00 p.m. The President will preside over that meeting.
  • Eleven rounds of elections have been held in the General Assembly to date.
  • The Spokesperson was asked whether the election process would be turned over to the ICJ in The Hague if the General Assembly and Security Council could not agree on the remaining vacancy. He responded that there were additional procedures that could be followed in New York if the Monday meeting remained inconclusive.
  • For example, a joint conference could be formed, consisting of six members (three appointed by the General Assembly and three by the Security Council). This joint conference could then agree upon a name by an absolute majority and submit it for the acceptance of the Assembly and the Council. Nevertheless, the time for that procedure had not come yet, and the Spokesperson advised the journalist to wait and see what happened in the Monday meeting.