UN General Assembly 73rd Session

Special Coverage of the 73rd General Debate

25 September-1 October 2018

As world leaders gather in New York in the coming days, the curtain will rise on the busiest diplomatic season of the year at United Nations Headquarters.

Here, UN News gives you a front row seat to all the action during the General Assembly’s annual; high-level segment, known as the general debate. Follow monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, as they define global responses to many of today’s pressing challenges, including climate change, international migration, protracted conflicts, and extreme poverty and hunger.

María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the seventy-third session of the General Assembly, gavels to a close the General Assembly’s annual general debate.

UN Assembly wraps up annual general debate, its global multilateral role reaffirmed; now comes the task of reform

1 October 2018

Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the opening of the general debate of the General Assembly's 73rd session.

Climate change and multilateralism figure high on first day of UN General Assembly debate

25 September 2018

United Nations General Assembly prepares to hold a meeting on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals.

On day two of UN General Assembly’s annual debate, it’s multilateralism all the way

26 September 2018

Wide view of the General Assembly Hall at the opening of its seventy-third session, on 18 September 2018.

On day three, of UN Assembly debate, Israel and Palestine put sharp focus on complexities thwarting peace

27 September 2018

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados addresses the seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly.

On Day four of UN Assembly debate, leaders from vulnerable island States turn out in force to plead for climate action

28 September 2018

María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, then President-elect of the 73rd session of the General Assembly addresses the media at UN headquarters in New York. June 2018.

UN Photo/Manuel Elías

INTERVIEW: ‘Dare to deliver’ more for the world, underscores General Assembly President

17 September 2018

SDGs

In June, the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, elected Ecuadorean Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the President of its 73rd session. Ms. Espinosa is only the fourth woman to hold that position in the history of the world body, and the first woman ever from the Latin America and the Caribbean region to preside over the Assembly.

In this photo from 2012, Joseph Deiss, President of the sixty-fifth General Assembly, bangs the gavel, sealing the appointment of Ban Ki-moon to a second term as UN Secretary-General.

UN Photo/Mark Garten

Keeping order in the General Assembly: The strange saga of how a Viking gavel was broken, then lost, then carved again

17 September 2018

UN Affairs

If you’re a keen observer of the United Nations General Assembly, you may have noticed the body’s President wields a very unusual looking gavel. It is a gift from Iceland, and there’s a very interesting story behind it.