Bulgaria to chair the Third Committee of the UN GA
02 October 2013 News
For first time in the last 20 years, Bulgaria will again chair a major UN Committee. On 1 October, the United Nations General Assembly in New York elected Bulgarian Permanent Representative, Ambassador Stephan Tafrov, for Chairman of the Third Committee of the Organization. The Third Committee deals with thematic issues of human rights, the status of human rights in different countries, as well as social, humanitarian and cultural issues.
The chairmanship of one of the main UN committees dealing with matters of utmost importance is a high assessment of Bulgaria’s reputation in the field of human rights and demonstrates the confidence that our country enjoys within the global organization. We expect that the implementation of an active and meaningful presidency of the Third Committee will enhance our national capacity to contribute to the human rights protection and will have a favorable impact on our application for another important UN body - the Human Rights Council for the period 2019 – 2021.
As chairman of the Third Committee, we will work towards achieving the European Union priorities on Human Rights at the 68th session of the UN General Assembly and we will aim at maintaining and increasing the consensus resolutions in this area.
The functions of Vice-Chairmen of the Third Committee will be executed by Lebanon and Iceland (from Asia- Pacific and the Western Group) and Costa Rica (rapporteur from GRULAC). The African Group has not yet nominated a representative of the Bureau of the Third Committee.
On October 1, the chairmen of other major committees were chosen by consensus: Ambassador Ibrahim Al-Dabashi ( Libya) - First Committee, Ambassador Carlos Enrique García González ( El Salvador ) - Fourth Committee, Ambassador Abdou Salam Diallo (Senegal ) - Second Committee; Jan Tallis, Deputy Permanent Representative of Finland - Fifth Committee and Ambassador Palitha T.B. Kohona (Sri Lanka) - Sixth Committee.