The United Nations mourns the loss of Jean Gazarian, a staff member whose six-decade career offered him a rare opportunity to witness the various moments and milestones along the path that saw a nascent 51-member Organization develop into the 193-strong world body it is today.
Yasuaki Yamashita, a 76-year-old who makes his home in Mexico, is among the dwindling number of hibakusha – people alive today who survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Many, like Mr. Yamashita, have since those horrifying events, dedicated their lives to peace and continue to work for nuclear disarmament.
Multiple conflicts have resulted in the massive displacement of men, women and children around the world in record numbers. Last year alone, more than one million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. And yet, the arrivals in Europe represent only a fraction of the world’s current 60 million refugees and displaced people – the highest level since the end of the Second World War.
In September 2002, Zeid was elected the first President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. At that time, the Court was only a plan on paper, and over the next three years he oversaw the election of the first 18 judges, mediated selection of the Court’s first president, and led efforts to name the Court’s first prosecutor – laying out a functioning institution, despite considerable budgetary pressures and criticism of the Court from several leading nations.
With countries reaching a new agreement at the United Nations climate change conference (COP21), the global meeting has been qualified as a “monumental triumph” by top UN officials. While many continued to hail the outcome document as the walls of COP21 were torn down on Sunday, the UN News Centre looked back on other aspects that contributed “positive energy” to the two-week event.
In August 2014, amid a rapidly growing outbreak of Ebola, Dr. David Nabarro was tasked with providing strategic guidance for an enhanced international response, and galvanizing essential support for affected communities and countries. As the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Ebola, Dr. Nabarro played a key role in responding to the outbreak, which mainly affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and claimed more than 11,300 lives to date.
Just days away from the kick-off of the 21st United Nations climate change conference — widely known as COP21 — the UN is reminding its main actors that this conference must be a turning point for climate action.
On 31 October 2000, the United Nations Security Council adopted the historic resolution 1325, drawing attention to the differential impact of armed conflict on women, their exclusion from conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and the inextricable links between gender equality and international peace and security.
Peter Sutherland is the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration. A strong advocate for the rights of migrants – and for action to increase the benefits of migration for countries of origin, destination, and migrants alike – he works to foster cooperation on issues such as protecting migrants affected by crises and ensuring their role in the development process. A former Attorney General of Ireland, Mr. Sutherland has served as EU Commissioner for competition policy, and headed the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Mogens Lykketoft of Denmark was elected President of the General Assembly’s seventieth session on 15 June 2015. At the time of his election, he was the Speaker of the Danish Parliament. A veteran parliamentarian and government minister, and an economist by training, he was his country’s Foreign Minister from 2000 to 2001. As Finance Minister, from 1993 to 2000, he directed economic reforms that led to a strengthened Danish economy.
