General Assembly Adopts Amended Third Committee Text Concerning Rights Of Persons with Disabilities, World Summit on Information Society Review Outcome Document

General Assembly Adopts Amended Third Committee Text Concerning Rights Of Persons with Disabilities, World Summit on Information Society Review Outcome Document

The General Assembly today adopted, without a vote, the outcome document of the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society.

By the terms of that document (document A/80/L.41), the Assembly reaffirmed commitment to the vision of the Summit to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented information society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge. Further, it decided that the Internet Governance Forum shall be made a permanent forum of the United Nations, with a continued secretariat hosted by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, on a stable and sustainable basis with appropriate staffing and resources.

That document also recognized the critical importance of closing digital divides, noted persistent gender digital divides and called for strengthened international cooperation to address the financial and other constraints impeding the achievement of digital inclusion for all. It expressed concern about growing levels of demand for energy and water consumption arising from digitalization and recognized the need for the sustainable use of critical mineral resources, including scarce minerals required in the manufacture of digital equipment.

On artificial intelligence, the document encouraged the development of international capacity-building partnerships to develop education and training programmes, increase access to resources including open artificial intelligence models and systems, open training data and compute, facilitate artificial intelligence model training and development, and promote the participation of micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises in the digital economy.

Prior to that adoption, the Assembly completed its two-day debate on the World Summit on the Information Society (See GA/12745).

Amended Third Committee Text Deletes References to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity

In the morning, the Assembly continued action on a set of 56 proposals emerging from its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).

It adopted as amended a draft resolution titled "Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto: amplified barriers in diverse contexts" (document A/C.3/80/L.44/Rev.1) by a vote of 176 in favour to 2 against (Argentina, United States) with 0 abstentions.

By its terms, the Assembly called upon States that have not yet signed and ratified the Convention and the Optional Protocol to consider doing so as a matter of priority.

Prior to the adoption, delegates adopted a draft amendment (document A/80/L.40) by a vote of 81 in favour to 77 against with 15 abstentions, deleting references to "sexual orientation and gender identity" from a preambular paragraph that lists grounds on which persons with disabilities may face compounded discrimination.

Earlier this week, voting on the amendment resulted in a 74-74 tie, with 18 abstentions, necessitating today's second vote. The measure had become a flashpoint as it targeted language that many delegations viewed as integral to the principle of non-discrimination, while others regarded it as politically or culturally contentious.

Today's adoption brought the number of Third Committee texts adopted so far by the 193-member Assembly to 21 (please see Press Release GA/12744 of 15 December).

Action on the remaining 35 drafts will take place on Thursday, 18 December.

Complete Live Blog coverage of today's meeting can be found here.