United Nations Document Codes
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The principal organs of the United Nations System issue official documents in six languages under the United Nations masthead with a unique document code for reference. These document codes have evolved over time and can sometimes many forms, however in most instances it is possible to tell from the code the year, type and body which produced the document.
To cite documents of this form you should ideally use Template:UN document. The website www.undemocracy.com is a good source for finding and compiling such references. Also see Wikipedia:Citing sources.
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[edit] Elements
United Nations bodies share many of the same procedures, and codes for these are mostly duplicates. Beyond this top level of similarity it is necessary to know the specifics of how they are numbered.
[edit] First letter
There are four primary document producing bodies which print documents under the mast-head of the United Nations. Other bodies, such as the World Health Organization, have their own sets of codes which are sometimes similar in nature but have a different heading at the top of the page.
- A/ - United Nations General Assembly
- A/C.3 - Third Main Committee of the United Nations General Assembly
- S/ - United Nations Security Council
- ST/ - United Nations Secretariat
- E/ - United Nations Economic and Social Council
[edit] Middle codes
- /RES/ - A resolution of the body
- /PV.67/ - A full, first-person account of the proceedings of the 67th meeting (of the year, or since the start of the UN) known as a "proces verbal" or "Verbatim record".[1]
- /SR.67/ - A third-person condensed version of the above meeting, known as the "Summary record".[2]
- /L.45/ - Document which has limited distribution, usually a draft resolution before it is voted on and reprinted in its final form.
- /ES-10/ - A "meeting" of the Tenth 'emergency special session'[3].
[edit] Trailing codes
- /Add.3 - Addendum to a document.
- /Rev.1 - First revision of a document.
- /Corr.1 - Corrigendum to a document.
[edit] General Assembly
- A/RES/57/100 - The 100th resolution of the General Assembly in Session 57 (the year 2002-2003).
- A/RES/1239(XIII) - Prior to 1960 (session 15), General Assembly resolutions were numbered consecutively from the beginning, with the session number given in roman numerals. This is the 1239th resolution, which was passed in session 13 (1958-1959).
- A/45/712 - A General Assembly document, number 712 session 45. Sometimes a report or an official letter of representation. These are documents which are referred to during the business of a meeting.
[edit] Special cases
- A/52/2 - Always the annual report from the Security Council to the General Assembly at the start of the session,[6] since 1976. Prior to this it was a numbered document (eg A/6702) which needed to be looked up on an index.[7]
- A/62/50 - Preliminary list of items to be included in the agenda for the 62th session. Issued in February, seven months before the start of the actual session in September.[8]
- A/520/Rev.16 - Most recent revision of the rules and procedures of the General Assembly (was originally released at A/520 in 1948).
[edit] Main committees
- A/C.5/ - A document from the fifth main committee.[9] Since reports from these committees become working documents of the General Assembly, they are allocated a sequential number within the standard scheme when they are issued.
[edit] Human Rights Council
The Human Rights Council, established in 2006, publishes its own series of documents, many of which are distributed under the General Assembly masthead.
- A/HRC/4/123 - A document circulated in the fourth session.
- A/HRC/S-3/2 - A document circulated in the third special session.
- A/HRC/4/NGO/129 - An NGO authored document circulated in the fourth session.
[edit] Security Council
- S/RES/1441(2002) - Security Council resolution number 1441 of the year 2002. These are numbered consecutively since the start of the UN.[10]
- S/PV.4644 - The verbatim report of the 4644th meeting of the Security Council, numbered since 1945.
- S/PV/4460/Resu.2 - Verbatim report of the second resumption (and therefore the third sitting) of the 4460th Security Council meeting.
- S/PRST/1996/37 - The 37th Presidential Statement (president of the Security Council) in the year 1996. Prior to 1994 these were issued in the sequential series of documents.[11]
[edit] Secretariat
These are documents produced in the name of the Secretary-General but aren't filed under a code-heading for the body they were submitted to. The structure is less easy to determine.
- ST/LIB/SER.B/S.38 - Report of Secretary-General to the Security Council in the 56th year/session (=38+18).[12]
There is an index of the Secretariat's documents issued annually, with a name of the form: ST/IC/2007/1 where 2007 is the year. It's introductory material explains more about the naming system used.
[edit] Other links
- http://documents.un.org/ - Portal into search engine for the Official Document System
- http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/scvote.htm - Research guide for Security Council voting information. (Some documents with /INF/)