Pattern of Conferences Resolutions

A/RES/50/206View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 119 Pattern of conferences, published in 1996.

What else is in this group?

107 documents · 1958–2025

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2025).

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/234	Pattern of conferences	5,780	–
2024	A/RES/79/248	Pattern of conferences	6,725	–
2023	A/RES/78/245	Pattern of conferences	6,396	–
2023	A/RES/77/255	Pattern of conferences	6,274	–
2021	A/RES/76/237	Pattern of conferences	6,474	–

This group bundles related documents that are not individually ordered.

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report · 2009

Year	Symbol	Title		Mandate resolution
2009	E/2010/4	Review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the outcomes of the 23rd special session of the General Assembly and its contribution to shaping a gender perspective towards the full realization of the Millennium Development Goals report of the Secretary-General		A/RES/50/206

What subjects does this mandate have?

13 subjects

Calendar of Meetings Conference and Meeting Services Conference Facilities Cost Effectiveness Documents Distribution Documents Limitation Language Services Languages Meeting Records Optical Disks Rules and Regulations Technological Innovations Translation

What’s in this document?

47 operative paragraphs

A

Notes with appreciation the work of the Committee on Conferences;

Approves the draft calendar of conferences and meetings of the United Nations for the biennium 1996-1997 as submitted³ and amended by the Committee on Conferences;⁴

³Ibid., Supplement No. 32 (A/50/32), annex II.A.

⁴Ibid., Supplement No. 32 (A/50/32), addenda (A/50/32/Add.1 and 2).

Authorizes the Committee on Conferences to make adjustments in the calendar of conferences and meetings for 1996 that may become necessary as a result of actions and decisions taken by the General Assembly at its fiftieth session;

Notes that no sessions are scheduled to open or close on 20 February and 29 April 1996, invites United Nations bodies to avoid holding meetings on 20 February and 29 April 1996, and requests the Secretariat to make similar arrangements when drafting the revised calendar of conferences and meetings for 1997;

Invites the Economic and Social Council to continue to consider, as appropriate, the biennialization of meetings of its subsidiary bodies;

Invites all bodies to exercise restraint in requesting open-ended ad hoc meetings in view of the possible adverse effect of such meetings on the efficient utilization of conference-servicing resources;

Expresses concern that the overall utilization factor for conference services fell below the established benchmark figure of 80 per cent in 1994;

Endorses the initiatives taken by the Chairman of the Committee on Conferences with a view to assisting bodies to achieve the optimum utilization of conference-servicing resources and, to that effect, to assess realistically their need for such resources;

Requests the Secretariat to take the measures recommended by the Committee on Conferences to enhance utilization of conference-servicing resources and to report thereon to the General Assembly at its fifty-first session through the Committee;

Expresses concern about the underutilization of conference facilities at duty stations outside Headquarters, and emphasizes the need to make the most effective use possible of such facilities;

Requests the Chairman of the Committee on Conferences to hold consultations with various bodies and committees to ensure rational allocation and capacity utilization of all United Nations conference facilities at Headquarters, United Nations Offices and other duty stations with a view to addressing the present imbalance in order to enhance the capacity utilization and cost-effectiveness of these facilities and to report to the Committee on the outcome of these consultations at its substantive session of 1996;

Decides that the headquarters rule shall be adhered to by all bodies, particularly those whose headquarters are underutilized;

Requests the Secretary-General to provide, within the resources approved for conference services in the biennium 1996-1997, interpretation services for meetings of regional and other major groupings of Member States upon request by those groupings, taking into account the priority due to meetings included in the calendar of conferences and meetings, and to submit a report on the implementation of this decision to the General Assembly at its fifty-first session through the Committee on Conferences.

B

Decides, pursuant to paragraph 3 of resolution 49/221 B, that the current entitlement to meeting records of the following bodies shall be continued:

United Nations Administrative Tribunal (when holding oral hearings);

First Committee;

Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (when holding meetings in observance of international days of solidarity proclaimed by the General Assembly);

Executive Committee of the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees;

Approves the recommendation of the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples to replace its verbatim records by summary records;⁵

⁵See A/50/23 (Part I), para. 56.

Notes the intention of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to replace its verbatim records by unedited transcripts,⁶ and requests the Committee to keep the General Assembly informed, through the Committee on Conferences, of the experience of that body regarding unedited transcripts;

⁶Official Records of the General Assembly, Fiftieth Session, Supplement No. 20 (A/50/20), para. 180.

Takes note of the decision of the Committee on Conferences contained in paragraph 75 of its report, 2/ and requests the Committee to report on the implementation of that decision to the General Assembly at its fifty-first session.

C

Notes with concern that the existing limits of 32 pages and 24 pages for documents prepared for intergovernmental meetings, confirmed by its resolution 36/117 A of 10 December 1981 and endorsed by its resolution 38/32 E of 25 November 1983, respectively, are not routinely enforced;

Requests the Secretary-General to enforce, where appropriate, the existing page limits referred to in paragraph 1 above in respect of all documents originating in the Secretariat, to review these limits, where appropriate, with a view to achieving an overall reduction of documentation without affecting its quality and to report thereon to the General Assembly at its fifty-first session through the Committee on Conferences;

Also requests the Secretary-General to include only where necessary brief descriptions of the history of the subjects contained in the reports together with a reference to relevant documents, bearing in mind the need to restrict the number of pages to the limits referred to in paragraph 1 above;

Further requests the Secretary-General to ensure that documentation is available in accordance with the six-week rule for the distribution of documents, simultaneously in each of the six official languages of the United Nations;

Decides that, should a report be issued late, the reasons for the delay should be indicated when the report is introduced;

Requests members of all bodies to exercise restraint in making proposals containing requests for new reports;

Invites all bodies to consider the possibility of biennializing or triennializing the presentation of reports, to review the necessity of all recurrent documents with a view to streamlining documentation and contributing to savings and to make appropriate recommendations;

Encourages members of intergovernmental bodies:

To consider the possibility of requesting oral reports, without prejudice to the provision of information to delegations in all the official languages;

To request consolidated reports on related topics under a single item or sub-item where appropriate and cost-effective;

Requests the Secretary-General:

To provide an oral estimate of the cost of documents or reports requested by Member States, without prejudice to the right of intergovernmental bodies to request such documents or reports;

To seek a more reader-friendly and uniform format of reports, taking into account new publishing technologies, that would include sections containing the objective of the report, an executive summary, the conclusions drawn and, as appropriate, the action proposed to be taken by the body, and to submit proposals thereon to the General Assembly through the Committee on Conferences;

Endorses the recommendation made by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions that the Joint Inspection Unit be requested to conduct a comprehensive survey of the role publications play in implementing mandates of intergovernmental bodies and the extent to which recurrent publications could be made more cost-effective in this regard;⁸

⁸Official Records of the General Assembly, Fiftieth Session, Supplement No. 7 and corrigendum (A/50/7 and Corr.1), para. 83.

Requests the Secretary-General to present to the General Assembly at its fifty-first session, through the Committee on Conferences and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, a report on the implementation of these measures, including information on possible savings.

D

Requests the Secretary-General to develop as soon as possible a comprehensive and accurate cost-accounting system for conference services, to report on the progress of its implementation to the General Assembly through the Committee on Conferences and to report the results of its use to the Assembly through the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, in accordance with their respective mandates;

Encourages the Secretariat to continue its efforts to improve the cost-effectiveness of document production, without prejudice to the international character of the Organization;

Also requests the Secretary-General to present proposals to the General Assembly at its fifty-first session through the Committee on Conferences on facilitating access by developing countries to the optical disk system in all official languages, taking into account the possible savings from reduced copying and distribution costs;

Further requests the Secretary-General, in pursuing the foregoing efforts, to ensure that new technologies in the area of conference services are introduced in all official languages as soon as possible in a comprehensive manner without adverse effects on the provision of services, in full consultation with Member States and, as appropriate, in coordination with relevant intergovernmental bodies.

E

Emphasizes the need for strict compliance with the resolutions and rules establishing language arrangements for the different bodies and organs of the United Nations;

Stresses the need to continue to ensure the availability of the necessary resources to guarantee the timely translation of documents into the different official and working languages of the Organization and their simultaneous distribution in those languages;

Appreciates the fact that, through advanced technology as well as improved management and increased productivity, the Secretariat has largely been enabled to cope with the growth in demand for translation and documentation services;

Notes the actions taken to improve the quality of translation into all official languages, in particular the efforts of the Arabic Translation Service to implement the proposal contained in annex II to the report of the Committee on Conferences to the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session,⁹ requests the Secretary-General to undertake a thorough review of the terminology and technical methods used in translation into Arabic, and urges the Secretariat to speed up its efforts towards the implementation of phase II of that proposal and to report thereon to the Committee on Conferences at its substantive session of 1996.

⁹Ibid., Forty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 32 (A/49/32/Rev.1).

F

Expresses its appreciation to the Secretary-General and the Secretariat for their prompt and effective actions to implement resolution 49/221 D;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to provide these improved meeting arrangements and facilities for subsequent sessions of the General Assembly;

Decides that such improved meeting arrangements and facilities shall be made available within existing resources.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What else is in this group?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

A

B

C

D

E

F

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