Puerto Vallarta, 7 December 2017 – The President of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Miroslav Lajčák, will return to New York today, following the closing of a General Assembly stocktaking meeting on migration in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
The meeting, which was held from 4 to 6 December, provided a platform for Member States and other actors, such as civil society, to jointly shape a vision for the first ever global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration.
In his closing remarks on 6 December, the President said that, along with other gatherings related to the global compact, the Puerto Vallarta meting represented “the most comprehensive and inclusive international discussions on migration in history.”
He also highlighted areas of agreement at the meeting. Those included the ideas that: the current response to international migration was unsustainable; that migration was a global phenomenon in need of an international response; that a credible follow-up mechanism was essential for implementing what was agreed upon; and that Member States would continue to determine their own migration policies.
Negotiating the global compact, which would be the first of its kind, would be “a test of the United Nations’ capacity to respond to the most pressing global issues,” the President said.
During his visit to Mexico, the President also met with the Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Mr. William Lacy Swing, and the Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations in Geneva and President of the IOM Council, H.E. Ms Marta Maurás. He also engaged in an informal discussion with civil society representatives on migration.
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For media inquiries, please contact:
Katharina Kandt, Communications Adviser to the President of the General Assembly, Kandt@un.org, +1 917-244-3890
