{"id":168918,"date":"2020-09-21T12:01:27","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T11:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=168918"},"modified":"2020-12-02T09:55:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T09:55:10","slug":"un-assembly-approves-pandemic-resolution-us-israel-object","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/09\/un-assembly-approves-pandemic-resolution-us-israel-object\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Assembly Approves Pandemic Resolution; US, Israel Object"},"content":{"rendered":"

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12 Sep 2020 – <\/em>The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a wide-ranging resolution on tackling the coronavirus pandemic Friday [11 Sep] over objections from the United States and Israel, which protested a successful last-minute Cuban amendment that strongly urged countries to oppose any unilateral economic, financial or trade sanctions.<\/p>\n

The 193-member world body adopted the resolution by a vote of 169-2, with Ukraine and Hungary abstaining. It was a strong show of unity by the U.N.\u2019s most representative body, though many countries had hoped for adoption by consensus.<\/p>\n

The resolution, which is not legally binding, is the third and most extensive adopted by the General Assembly. A resolution adopted April 2 recognized \u201cthe unprecedented effects\u201d of the pandemic and called for \u201cintensified international cooperation to contain, mitigate and defeat\u201d the new coronavirus. A Mexico-sponsored resolution approved April 20 urged global action to rapidly scale up development, manufacturing and access to medicine, vaccines and medical equipment to confront the pandemic.<\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s resolution, the General Assembly says the pandemic poses \u201cone of the greatest global challenges in the history of the United Nations,\u201d and calls for \u201cintensified international cooperation and solidarity to contain, mitigate and overcome the pandemic and its consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution urges U.N. member states \u201cto enable all countries to have unhindered timely access to quality, safe, efficacious and affordable diagnosis, therapeutics, medicines and vaccines \u2026 as well as equipment for the COVID-19 response.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it recognizes \u201cthe role of extensive immunization against COVID-19 as a global public good for health in preventing, containing and stopping transmission in order to bring the pandemic to an end, once safe, quality, efficacious, effective, accessible and affordable vaccines are available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afghan Ambassador Adela Raz, who coordinated the drafting of the resolution with Croatian envoy Ivan Simonovic, told the assembly the resolution is not only a response to the disease \u201cbut a tribute to the victims,\u201d noting that more than 900,000 people worldwide have died and over 25 million have been infected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is experiencing the worst economic recession since World War II, and equality and poverty are increasing, and more people are experiencing hunger,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are indeed facing the most significant global catastrophe since the founding of this important organization, the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Members of the “Bora Testar” or Let’s Test project, walk through the the Paraisopolis neighborhood of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Friday, Sept. 11, 2020. The project plans to test up to 600 people for COVID-19 in the low income neighborhood, and to expand to other vulnerable communities in the country, financed by crowdfunding and donations. (AP Photo\/Carla Carniel)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Raz said adoption of the resolution shows the world\u2019s nations are ready to respond, despite failing to reach consensus, and are committed to U.N. goals for 2030 including ending extreme poverty, preserving the environment and achieving gender equality \u201cfor building back better after the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simonovic said the great majority of nations \u201chave chosen the path of solidarity and multilateralism\u201d and called the resolution \u201ca powerful tool for mobilization of political will and financial resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said political and financial support are badly needed \u201cto curb COVID-19, strengthen our stressed health systems and to save jobs and livelihoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution calls on all countries \u201cand other relevant stakeholders to advance, with determination, bold and concerted actions to address the immediate social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, while striving to get back on track\u201d to achieve the 2030 goals.<\/p>\n

It calls on governments and international financial institutions \u201cto provide more liquidity in the financial system, especially in all developing countries.\u201d It supports recovery plans that \u201cdrive transformative change towards more inclusive and just societies including by empowering and engaging all women and girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it urges U.N. member nations \u201cto adopt a climate- and environment-responsive approach to COVID-19 recovery efforts\u201d including by aligning investments and domestic policies with the U.N. goals and the 2015 Paris agreement to combat climate change.<\/p>\n

Cuba succeeded in changing a paragraph in the resolution that originally called for \u201cthe urgent removal of unjustified obstacles in order to ensure the universal, timely and equitable access to, and fair distribution of, all quality, safe, efficacious and affordable essential health technologies and products, including their components and precursors that are required in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

By a vote of 132-3, the assembly amended the resolution to urge all countries \u201cto refrain from promulgating and applying any unilateral economic, financial or trade measures not in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations that impedes the full achievement of economic and social development, particularly in developing countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States was then overwhelmingly defeated in attempts to remove two paragraphs from the resolution, one referring to women\u2019s rights to \u201csexual and reproductive health\u201d and the other to \u201cpromoting global sustainable transport.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to arguing against the language on sanctions, the United States opposed all references to the World Health Organization, which the Trump administration stopped funding, accusing the U.N. agency of failing to do enough to stop the virus from spreading when it first surfaced in China.<\/p>\n

It accused China of hiding the truth about the outbreak from the world in the early days which \u201cimperiled all of us and caused needless additional suffering and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chinese diplomat Xing Jisheng responded, alluding to the recent revelation that President Donald Trump \u201crecognized the danger of the virus at a very early stage, but deliberately played it down to avoid panic.\u201d He asked: \u201cWho is hiding the truth?\u201d<\/p>\n

Xing also asked why the U.S., with the most advanced medical system in the world, has the most COVID-19 cases. \u201cIf the United States is serious about fighting the pandemic, it should focus on protecting lives and health of its people, instead of being busy with blame-shifting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – apnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a wide-ranging resolution on tackling the coronavirus pandemic on 11 Sep 2020 over objections from the United States and Israel, which protested a successful last-minute Cuban amendment. The world body adopted the resolution by a vote of 169-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":168919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2236],"tags":[1829,1868,1864,884,124],"class_list":["post-168918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid19-coronavirus","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-pandemic","tag-unga","tag-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}