Adopted 20 years ago by the United Nations General Assembly, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not yet got into effect, and will only come into force once ratified by eight specific countries that have not done it yet.
Noting that national policies often tend to treat women and girls with disabilities as helpless objects of pity or allow them to be treated in that manner, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has stressed that, instead, they need to be empowered and allowed to enjoy their fundamental rights and freedoms, as any other person.
As part of this year’s commemoration of World Humanitarian Day (WHD), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs launched a photography exhibition in New York entitled “When I Grow Up.” By photographing African children aged six to 18 – whose young lives have already been beleaguered with hardships – photographer Vincent Tremeau documented their aspirations by capturing each dressed in the clothing of the adult they aspire to be.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Patricia Espinosa as the new Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in May this year. Ms. Espinosa recently spoke with UN News about her work and the challenges ahead.
Following five months of negotiations, United Nations Member States agreed on 2 August by consensus upon a political declaration that will serve as the basis for discussions and the outcome of the first-ever UN Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants which will be held, on 19 September, at UN Headquarters in New York.
“In the talk about peacebuilding and reconciliation, we sometimes forget that it’s about how local communities come back together,” said the United Nations Assistant-Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, discussing the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund – which supports millions of people in 27 countries.
