Reconsideration by the Executive Committee of its Need for Summary Records

EC/1995/SC.2/CRP.13

I. INTRODUCTION

Within the context of its ongoing efforts to control and limit documentation, the General Assembly has again called upon subsidiary bodies to review their need for verbatim or summary records. More specifically, the Executive Committee has been asked to provide justifications to the General Assembly if it wishes to maintain its existing rights to summary records.

The recent history of General Assembly initiatives in this respect is as follows:

In paragraph 16 of its resolution 47/202 B of 22 December 1992, the General Assembly decided that, at its forty-ninth session, there should be a comprehensive review of the need for and usefulness of verbatim and summary records on the basis of a report submitted by the Secretary-General through the Committee on Conferences and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.

In paragraphs 5 and 6 of the same resolution, the Assembly encouraged those bodies that receive summary records and whose reports exceed the 32-page limit to consider relinquishing their entitlement to summary records, and urged those bodies that receive summary records to consider relinquishing their entitlement when drafting is being undertaken in formal session and duly recorded in the report.

In paragraph 3 of its resolution 48/222 B of 23 December 1993, the Assembly encouraged all bodies currently entitled to written meeting records to review the need for such records, particularly verbatim records, and to communicate their recommendations to the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session.

Most recently, General Assembly resolution 49/221 B of 23 December 1994 requests, in operative paragraph 3, that the Executive Committee, among a number of other bodies, submit to the General Assembly, through the Committee on Conferences, justifications for the continuation of the current entitlement to summary records.

The question of Executive Committee summary records must also be seen in the more general context of measures taken to reduce the volume of documentation. In its resolution 36/117 A, chapter 11, para. 5, and 37/14 C, para. 14, the General Assembly requested its subsidiary organs to strive to keep their reports as succinct as possible and "within the desirable limit of 32 pages". In order to comply with this request, the Executive Committee duly examined in 1986, General Assembly resolution 2836 (XXVI), which states that the reports submitted by its subsidiary organs "should be concise and should be supplemented, as necessary, by cross-references to the summary records", and resolution 37/14 C, para. 13, which requests "those subsidiary organs that receive written meeting records to avoid including summaries of discussions in their reports ... by referring instead to the relevant meeting records".

It was on this basis that, at its thirty-eighth session in 1987, the Executive Committee endorsed the recommendations of its Working Group on Documentation and decided to streamline the report of its debate. As a result of further recommendations made in 1988, the thirty-ninth session of the Executive Committee further streamlined its report through its decision that:

[...] the report should henceforth contain an organizational part, a reference to the summary records for an account of the deliberations of the Committee, the conclusions and decisions reached by the Committee including any interpretative declarations or reservations relating thereto, as well as the High Commissioner's opening statement to the Committee which will be annexed to the report. (A/AC.96/721, para.34(i))

Since that time, the Executive Committee has eliminated all summaries of its debates from its reports, which have been greatly reduced in length and are within a reasonable margin of the 32-page limit established by the United Nations Secretariat.

II. IMPLICATIONS OF ELIMINATING SUMMARY RECORDS

As can be seen from the above, the decision to streamline the report of the Executive Committee was explicitly premised upon the existence of summary records to compensate for the elimination of a narrative account of meetings from the text of the report. Cancellation of the right to summary records would call into question the basis of the presentation of the report, making it difficult to maintain the shorter length.

Moreover, the Executive Committee has always reached its conclusions and decisions by consensus and, in view of the humanitarian and strictly apolitical nature of the work of UNHCR, has made a point of never resorting to a vote. The elimination of summary records, which provide scope for a reflection of the statements, explanations and reservations of delegations, might precipitate a break with the well-established tradition of consensus and be prejudicial to the spirit of the Executive Committee's work. This consideration has been an important element in the Executive Committee's prior decision to request the maintenance of summary records.

III. COST IMPLICATIONS

Notional costs for conference servicing have been established by the United Nations Secretariat and are set out in A/AC.172/INF/15. The following calculation is made on the basis of those figures:

($)

Cost of one hour of summary records (3 languages) 2,100

Estimated cost of ExCom summary records (24 hours) 50,400

Savings of $ 50,400 from the elimination of summary records would, however, be offset by any additional costs relating to an eventual lengthening of the Executive Committee report through the reintroduction of narrative summaries of the debate. Notional costs for the translation and reproduction of one page of documentation are also found in A/AC.172/INF/15. The following estimate is based on the length of narrative reporting included in the report of the thirty-sixth session of the Executive Committee in 1986 prior to the streamlining described above:

($)

Translating, revision, typing and reproduction of one standard page (five languages) 556

50 additional standard pages 27,800

While the elimination of summary records would thus lead to a financial saving, of between $ 50,000 (no additional narrative in report) and $ 22,000 (reversion to 1986 report format), this is relatively minor when compared to a total cost of $ 1.27 million for an annual Executive Committee session as a whole.

IV. CONCLUSION

In the light of the above information, it is suggested that the Sub-Committee recommend to the Executive Committee that it adopt a decision on the subject of summary records and request that its views be conveyed by the Chairman of the Executive Committee in a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on Conferences.

Annex Draft decision

The Executive Committee,

PP1 Noting General Assembly resolution 49/221 B of 23 December 1994 which requests that the Executive Committee submit to the General Assembly, through the Committee on Conferences, justifications for the continuation of the current entitlement to summary records,

PP2 Recalling that, in view of its entitlement to summary records, and in accordance with General Assembly resolution 37/14 C of 16 November 1982, the Executive Committee has eliminated all summaries of discussion from its report,

PP3 Noting with concern that elimination of summary records would run counter to measures taken to reduce the length of the Executive Committee report,

PP4 Recalling current initiatives of the Executive Committee to reduce further the volume of documentation provided to it,

PP5 Noting that Executive Committee requirements for summary records have been reduced to 24 hours of meeting time and account for a modest percentage of overall meeting costs,

PP6 Recalling the importance of summary records in reflecting statements, explanations and reservations of delegations and thus in facilitating the preservation of the tradition of consensus in decision-making,

OP1 Concludes that their is a strong justification and a valid need to maintain summary records of its proceedings;

OP2 Requests the Chairman of the Executive Committee to convey its views to the General Assembly through the Committee on Conferences.