He was speaking at the 37th plenary meeting of the tenth emergency special session of the UN General Assembly, which was entitled “Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. It had been convened for the first time in April 1997, following a request from the permanent representative of Qatar. It was last resumed in 2009 when the assembly called a meeting on East Jerusalem and the Palestinian authorities. The resolution states that the assembly can call an emergency special session to consider a matter “with a view to making appropriate recommendations to members for collective measures”, if the Security Council fails to act. In a Dec 19 press briefing, the spokesperson for General Assembly President Miroslav Lajčák, Brenden Varma, said that General Assembly resolutions were not legally binding when asked if any resolution by the emergency special session would be so.

Source: The Star December 21, 2017 17:37 UTC