General Assembly: Press Conference

The President of the United Nations General Assembly, John Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda), held an end-of-year press conference today at Headquarters in which he discussed highlights from the past year and outlined expected activities for 2014 and beyond, including the long-standing issue of Security Council reform.

At a Headquarters press conference today, Assembly President John Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda) welcomed civil society’s participation in determining the post-2015 development agenda as the “new norm”, and highlighted, among other changes, steps towards a new openness during the sixty-eighth General Assembly session.

Acknowledging attempts by many of his predecessors to move Security Council reform forward, the new President of the General Assembly said today that he would work for consensus on what that reform should look like.

The past weeks have been a busy and exciting time featuring a number of historic events, General Assembly President Vuk Jeremić (Serbia) said today as he reviewed recent meetings and forecast the schedule for the coming months.

A groundbreaking resolution just adopted by the General Assembly on female genital mutilation would equip all States to combat those harmful practices, the representative of Burkina Faso, Der Kogda, announced at a Headquarters press conference today.

Elaborating a harmonized post-2015 sustainable development agenda and developing a consultative mechanism between the General Assembly and global economic institutions would top that body’s priorities during its sixty-seventh annual session, said its President during a Headquarters press conference today.

The rule of law will take centre stage at United Nations Headquarters next week, as Heads of State and Government gather for the first-ever high-level General Assembly meeting on that topic, and for the 2012 Treaty Event to be held under the same theme, experts involved in those initiatives said at a press conference today.

The General Assembly’s journey over the past 12 months had been momentous, historic and challenging, as Member States stepped up to address conflicts, significant political developments and other pressing global issues of the day, General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser ( Qatar) said today, just days before handing over to his successor on Tuesday.

Anybody in the room on 13 December 2006 when the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted had felt the tremendous spirit behind the movement and understood that a “key tool to transform our societies” had joined the ranks of international human rights instruments, correspondents were told today as the Fifth Session of the Conference of States Parties to the treaty convened at Headquarters.