UNITED NATIONS: A key committee of the UN General Assembly Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution renewing the global commitment to the principle of self-determination for peoples still subjected to colonial, foreign and alien occupation.
Co-sponsored by 64 countries, the resolution, submitted by Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram, was adopted without a vote in the 193-member Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues.
The resolution, which Pakistan has been sponsoring since 1981, serves to focus the world’s attention on the people still struggling for their inalienable right to self-determination, including those in Palestine and Kashmir. The text is expected to come up for General Assembly’s endorsement next month.
“The right to self-determination of peoples provides a formidable foundation on which the edifice of human rights and fundamental freedoms is built for all,” Ambassador Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, said while introducing the draft.
That right, he said, has been codified in many international documents, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Social and Cultural Rights. –Agencies
