Not all ready to commit to Compact on Migration & other topics - General Assembly President

Press conference by Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa, President of the General Assembly, on preparations for the upcoming Katowice Climate Change Conference (COP24), in Poland on 2nd –14th December and the Intergovernmental Conference on the Global Compact for Migration to be held in Marrakech, Morocco, on the 10th and 11th December, as well as plans for the roll-out of a global campaign aimed at turning the tide on single use plastic pollution.
She also reports on the work of 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.
Opening remarks delivered by the President of the UN General Assembly, followed by Q&A.
----
The President of the General Assembly, María Fernanda Espinosa, today (21 Nov) said she “fully understands the decision of some countries that have decided that they are not ready to commit” to the Compact on Migration, as some Member States “need to have greater discussions and conversations domestically.”
Speaking to journalists in New York, Espinosa said, “the beauty of the Compact is that it allows, you know, enormous flexibility for countries to use the parts of the Compact that can be adapted to their sovereign decisions, to their existing legal frameworks. And it is a framework, it is a cooperation, an instrument.”
Asked about the killing of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Espinosa said, “this is a very strong, unacceptable, terrible situation,” but noted that “unfortunately” this is not an isolated case. She noted that 45 journalists “have been killed already during this year alone.”
Turning to the upcoming COP 24 Climate Change Conference COP 24 in in Katowice, Poland, in December, the GA President said “we have reached like a peak level in Paris, with the Paris Agreement, but there is a lot that we need to do. What we expect in Katowice is to have a strong agreed programme of work for the Paris Agreement. And it requires a lot of political will, a lot of commitment, a lot of flexibility in the negotiation process.”
COP 24 will take place in Katowice from 2 to 18 December.