United Nations General Assembly

As President Andrzej Duda addressed the 76th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, activists rallied outside in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza for human rights in Poland. The activist coalition held Pride flags and stark images of the victims…

As the United Nations General Assembly continues in New York, the First Committee, which deals with Disarmament and International Security, is listening to national statements.  Our friends at Reaching Critical Will, are as ever doing the world a great serivce…

On 7 July 2017, at the United Nations in New York, a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was approved in a vote by 122 member states, one member state, the Netherlands, voted against, and one, Singapore, abstained.  No…

The United Nations General Assembly today approved a historic resolution to launch negotiations in 2017 on a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. The vote follows a decision on 27 October by the General Assembly’s First Committee – which deals with disarmament and…

It’s time This week, delegations to the UN General Assembly could help shift the course of history. This sounds dramatic, especially for First Committee. While it always presents a good opportunity for progress, First Committee can sometimes seem like a…

A group of governments have submitted a draft UN General Assembly resolution to start negotiations on a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The document was circulated on Wednesday by its lead sponsors Austria, Mexico, South Africa, Ireland, Brazil and Nigeria and…

Austria’s foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, announced on Wednesday that his country would join other UN member states in tabling a resolution next month to convene negotiations on a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons in 2017. Speaking in the…

We reproduce here the Editorial from the First Committee Monitor, the weekly publication from our friends at Reaching Critical Will, published during the weeks of debate in the United Nations General Assembly. A few days before the vote on the…

At the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), nuclear disarmament resolutions passed this week by large majorities in the First Committee show continued and growing support for disarmament measures “in a new key.” These measures have arisen under the banner of…

As the UN General Assembly debates continue, Reaching Critical Will produces a weekly publication, First Committee Monitor, which deals with the issues raised in the First Committee, responsible for disarmament issues.  Pressenza is publishing this week’s editorial article by Ray…