UNITAR Delivers Workshop on the Drafting, Structure, and Adoption of United Nations Resolutions to the New York Diplomatic Community

21 June 2016, New York, USA - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research's (UNITAR) New York Office organized a two-day event, “Workshop on the Structure, Drafting, and Adoption of the United nations Resolutions” on 20-21 June 2016 at United Nations (UN) Headquarters in partnership with the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN. The Workshop was attended by approximately 30 delegates from Permanent Missions to the UN. Mr. Marco A. Suazo, representing UNITAR’s New York Office, opened the seminar and briefed the event’s topic of UN resolutions and introduced panelists. Mr. Suazo spoke his appreciation for generous support given by the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations in New York, which enabled sponsored delegates from other Permanent Missions to the United Nations to attend free of charge. Ms. Valeria Biagiotti, First Counselor of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN in New York joined the seminar. Ms. Biagiotti welcomed participants, thanked UNITAR for their partnership, mapped the session within the long-term scheme of the training activities, and sought new suggestions for these activities.

Session I (The Agenda of the Assembly) was led by Mr. Kenji Nakano, Secretary of the First Committee of the General Assembly (GA). Mr. Nakano overviewed the annual process to include items in the agenda of the General Assembly for UN resolutions, whose process starts with the preliminary list in February and continues until the very last moment that an item can be added. He also explained the system of corresponding official document numbers.  In addition, Mr. Nakano explained to the parties how they would go about requesting the inclusion of an item, the composition and role of the General Committee, the existence of exceptionally important issues that can be included even after the session begins, and the process of negative recommendations. Participants raised key issues including the different characteristics of each stage, forwarding the item to the next session, decision-making processes and its publication by the General Committee.

After a short break, Session II (Preparing a Draft Resolution) began with Mr. Suazo’s introduction of the covered issues. Mr. Larry Johnson, Former Assistant-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs of the United Nations, spoke on the practical aspects and legal implications of drafting UN resolutions. Mr. Johnson explained drafting preamble paragraphs, researching precedents of similar resolutions as well as their legal effects, title of resolutions, operative terminology, and the programme budget implication (PBI) of resolutions from different parties’ viewpoints. Panelists discussed the role and decision-making of the Fifth Committee and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), the traditional and contemporary nature of L Documents, management of trust funds, and the difference between GA decisions and resolutions. Participants posed questions, namely about the stage in which PBI matters and the coordination mechanism for the budgetary management occurs.

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Nakano then separated the participants into three groups and gave them the guidelines for drafting a mock resolution. The groups we dismissed to work on their proposals and, after returning them to the panelists, went home for the day. The following day Mr. Johnson led Session III on the logistics of the drafting process. Mr. Johnson touched upon the different decision-making system between the GA and Security Council, and explained the decision-making mechanism for resolutions, on which Mr. Suazo and Mr. Nakano provided additional input. Following lunch the panelists conducted a mock-GA meeting in which the three participants group’s drafts were considered and debated. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Nakano used this time to illustrate the usage of various procedures and votes that govern the process of voting on proposals and refining them. They paused from time to time to discuss various issues, such as who owns the proposals and at what times, what benefits come from adding to or limiting the numbers of sponsors for proposals, who to ask about procedural issues, and more importantly, how to ask them about said procedure.

After the Workshop nearly all of the participants, Mr. Suazo, and Mr. Johnson attended a reception at the Permeant Mission of Italy held in honor of the successful completion of a 6 month set of seminars conducted by UNITAR with the sponsorship of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations. Certificates of completion were distributed to participants and certificates of appreciation were presented to H.E. Mr. Sebastiano Cardi, the Ambassador of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations and Giampaolo Pioli the President of the United Nations Correspondents Association. After the presentation of certificates the attendees ate and discussed potential courses for future sessions that would be useful to their own Permanent Missions. Recommendations ranged from detail oriented courses designed to teach delegates how to better manage and conduct day-to-day nuances of the job, to requests for sweeping overviews discussing the 2030 Agenda and various strategies to reach the goals set by the United Nations. After suggestions were made the reception ended and thus concluded the Workshop.

Photos 1-3: Participants and Panelists at the Workshop on the Drafting, Structure, and Adoption of United Nations Resolutions

Photos 4 and 5: Hosts, Invitees and participants at the reception hosted by the Permenant Mission of Italy to the United Nations.