Conference Procedure on Drafting Final Charter (This document was approved by the Steering Committee at its third meeting, May 10) Doc. 243, May 11 1. Responsibility for preparing the final Charter shall rest upon the Coordination Committee as an agent of the Executive Committee. In this connection, the Coordination Committee's main responsibilities, under the Executive Committee, shall be as follows: a. to determine the general outline and type of charter to be drafted; b. to examine the drafts received from the technical committees with a view to eliminating inconsistencies between them, in consultation if necessary with the committees concerned or by referring the matter to the Executive Committee; c. to recommend to the Executive Committee the final draft of the Charter as a whole or in parts. 2. There shall also be established, under the Executive Committee, an Advisory Committee of Jurists, consisting of a small number (five or six members) which shall be responsible for reviewing the texts prepared by the Coordination Committee and eventually the whole text, from the point of view of terminology, in accordance with the procedure set forth in paragraph 5 below. 3. In the event of a disagreement between the Coordination Committee and the Advisory Committee of Jurists, there shall be a joint meeting of the two to resolve the difficulties, and if necessary consultation shall be had with the technical committees concerned. If such joint meeting fails to resolve such disagreements, then the matter shall be referred to the Executive Committee. 4. The technical committees of the Conference shall embody their decisions on points for which they are responsible in the form of drafts. 5. Subsequent procedure shall be as follows: a. These drafts shall be submitted by the technical committees to the Executive Committee, which shall refer them to the Coordination Committee. b. The Coordination Committee, after its review of the drafts, shall refer them to the Advisory Committee of Jurists, which shall, after its review, refer them back to the Coordination Committee for final review and submission to the Executive Committee. c. The Executive Committee shall refer the drafts submitted to it by the Coordination Committee to the respective commissions, which, after having examined and approved them, will in turn submit them to a plenary session of the Conference. 6. This procedure does not prejudice the right of commissions at any stage to review the activities or recommendations of their respective technical committees. Suggested Procedure for Conducting Committee Memorandum to the Delegations From the Secretariat, May 13 [Doc. 332], EX-SEC/8, May 13 (The following rules of procedure relating to discussion, to motions, and to the appointment of subcommittees have been widely applied in connection with international conferences in the past. At the suggestion of several delegations these rules are brought to the attention of delegations by the Secretariat as an aid to the conduct of committee discussions.) Rules for Discussion 1. The chairman may call a speaker to order if his remarks are not relevant to the subject under discussion. 2. If, in the course of discussion, a member rises to a point of order, he shall be given the floor immediately and such point of order shall be immediately decided by the chairman. If exception is taken to the decision of the chairman, the point should be referred by the chairman to the Executive Committee. Pending a decision by the Executive Committee, the decision of the chairman shall stand. 3. On motions pertaining to procedural matters the chairman may limit the debate to two speakers for and two speakers against the motion. On motions to close debate permission to speak for or against the motion shall not be accorded to more than two speakers on each side with a time limit of five minutes for each speech. 4. The chairman may limit the time of speeches of the delegates at any point in the debate. Motions 1. Any delegate may move motions, subject to Section II of the Conference Rules of Procedures; motions shall not be voted upon unless seconded. 2. A motion, other than privileged motions in paragraph 4 below, should be submitted in writing in one of the working languages of the Conference and handed in to the secretary of the committee before the motion is voted upon. 3. When a number of motions are before a meeting, the chairman shall determine the order in which they shall be discussed and put to the vote, subject to the following provisions: (a) If an amendment striking out or altering certain words in a proposal is moved, the meeting shall first vote on whether the words in question shall stand as part of the proposal. When an amendment is moved which adds to a proposal, the amendment shall be voted on first, and, if it is adopted, the amended proposal shall then be voted on. 4. The following motions, in the order named, shall have precedence over all other motions: (a) a motion to adjourn the sitting; (b) a motion to close debate on a particular question; (c) a motion to postpone consideration of the question; (d) a motion to refer the matter to subcommittee. 3 Ante, p. 69. Officers of Subcommittees 1. The chairman shall nominate chairmen, rapporteurs, and members of subcommittees or drafting committees as may be required, subject to the approval of a majority of the committee members present and voting. Suggested Measures To Expedite the Work Doc. 468, May 20 I. Suggested Time-Table A. The general aim should be to complete the work of the technical committees by the end of the present week. B. The work of the technical committees is subject to review by the commissions at two stages: prior to and subsequent to the redrafting of the committees' proposals by the Coordination Committee. So far as review at the first stage is desired, meetings of the commissions for this purpose might begin in the course of the present week and continue into the next. It would seem preferable that such meetings should take place after the technical committees concerned have completed a substantial part of their task and have disposed of their major issues. C. Commission meetings during the week beginning May 28 would presumably be concerned to an increasing extent with the second stage of the commissions' work, namely, the approval of the proposals as revised in Charter language by the Coordination Committee. D. When all the commissions have approved the Charter texts referred to them by the Coordination Committee, the entire Charter should be reviewed by the Steering Committee prior to its presentation to the final plenary sessions. E. It is hoped that the final plenary sessions might take place in the first week of June and that two sessions (perhaps held on the same day) might suffice to complete the work of the Conference. At these sessions the commissions would report their respective portions of the Charter and the entire Charter would be approved and signed. F. Measures designed to facilitate the attainment of this time schedule are outlined in II and III below. These measures involve an amplification of the procedures laid down in Documents 243 and EXSEC/8. II. Procedure for Preparing the Charter A. Proposals adopted by the technical committees even if these proposals form only part of a chapter or section-should be reported immediately to the Coordination Committee, which will examine them in relation to the Charter as a whole and redraft them in Charter form. B. Such proposals may, at the same time, in the discretion of the committees concerned in consultation with the president of their commission, be reported directly to the commission for review of substance. Meetings of the commissions for this purpose should be held under conditions which will permit an adequate discussion and review of the committees' reports. The committee rapporteurs should make it clear that the text under discussion is preliminary and subject to (1) coordination with texts adopted by other technical committees, and (2) redrafting into Charter language by the Coordination Committee. Should the commission introduce changes in the technical committees' proposals, these changes should be reported forthwith to the Coordination Committee through the Secretariat. C. Proposals which have been redrafted in Charter form by the Coordination Committee should be reported to the commissions concerned by the rapporteurs of the technical committees within which the texts originated. D. In order to limit the number of plenary meetings required to approve the acts of the Conference, (1) the commission rapporteurs should not be required at those meetings to read in full such texts as have previously been read and approved in commission meeting, and (2) there should be no discussion of or statements concerning the substance of the texts approved, full opportunity for discussion and statements having been afforded in the commission meetings. (As a further measure to avoid prolonging the closing sessions, the Secretariat is studying appropriate procedures whereby the delegations can be afforded opportunity, if they so desire, to make concluding statements through the medium of the Conference Journal and through the public press.) E. It is suggested that the acts of the Conference should be limited to the Charter, the Statute of the International Court, and an annex to the Charter establishing a commission with administrative powers to function during the interim period prior to the first meeting of the Assembly. This presupposes the avoidance of resolutions which would pre-judge the future policy of the Organization or deal with matters not directly related to the acts of the Conference. III. Measures To Expedite the Work of the Technical Committees A. Wherever uncertainty concerning the jurisdiction of different committees arises, solutions should be worked out by the presidents of the commissions and the chairmen of the committees concerned, either directly or by the setting up of joint subcommittees. B. Some time-limit for speeches in committees appears desirable. As regards debate on motions of procedure, it is suggested in Document EX-SEC/8 that debate be limited to two speakers on either side. As regards debate on questions of substance, the following procedure is now proposed: (1) A delegate may not speak more than twice on any one question, with a limit of 10 minutes on the first and 5 minutes on the second occasion. (The chairman might apply this rule with some discretion where the discussion involves a matter of major importance.) (2) When two delegates have spoken for a motion and no speaker wishes to take the opposite point of view, the chairman should put the motion to a vote immediately. (3) In order to conserve time, a delegation might, in lieu of an oral statement, file a written statement of its position for inclusion in the permanent archives of the Conference and, where requested, for summarization in the permanent committee records. C. The attention of all committees is called to the suggested rules of procedure for conducting committee meetings, contained in Docu 1 ment EX-SEC/8. The rule with respect to motions for the closing of debate indicated in paragraph 3, under "Rules for Discussion”, in that document might be supplemented by the following: Any member of the committee may at any time move that the debate be closed. It should be within the discretion of the chairman to accept such a motion if he considers the question before the committee has been sufficiently debated. A motion for the closure of a debate should be put to the vote forthwith without discussion, and if the motion is carried, the previous question before the committee should then forthwith be put to the vote without further discussion. D. Where several delegations have agreed to amalgamate amendments or to put forward a joint proposal, they should, so far as possible, arrange among themselves that only two speakers should speak in favor of the common proposal. The other delegations concerned would retain their right to file statements in the manner suggested under B (3) above. E. When a committee has requested an authoritative interpretation of a given proposal or amendment and when such interpretation has been given by a delegation and has been adopted by the Committee, that interpretation should then be set forth in the report of the rapporteur. Recommendations Concerning Conduct of Memorandum to all Delegations From the Secretariat, May 26 Doc. 593, May 26 The following recommendations were considered and approved in a meeting of the officers of commissions and committees on Friday, May 25, as a means of facilitating the conduct of public commission meetings. The objective is to provide a maximum freedom of expression at these meetings, yet to achieve the orderly and expeditious completion of the business of the commissions. It is recommended that: (1) Delegations should be given opportunity in the commission meeting to make statements either for or against proposals reported by a committee to the commission and voted on in the commission. It is not generally considered useful, however, to repeat in the commission meetings the debates which have been thoroughly heard in committee meetings. (2) Reasonable time limitations should be placed upon the debate in commission meetings. To this end, it is recommended that the rules limiting debate in committee meetings (as set forth in Doc. 468, ST/9)1 be adopted for commission meetings. As provided in those rules, the president of the commission would normally call for a vote if two speakers have been heard in favor of a proposal and no one wishes to speak against the proposal. The president might apply this rule with some discretion where the discussion involves a matter of major importance. (3) If delegates wish to propose in commission meetings amend * Ante, p. 80. |