95 



Convention in the six official languages of the Conference: Arabic, Chinese, 

 English, French, Russian and Spanish; 3/ a series of informal papers prepared by 

 the Secretariat; a series of papers embodying, proposals of a drafting nature 

 arising out of the consideration by the respective language groups of the Draft 

 Convention; find a scries of documents outlining the recommendations of the 

 co-ordinators of the language groups under the direction of the Chairman of the 

 Drafting Committee. The documentation prepared during the intersessional meeting 

 was extensive, and tbe pace of work and volume of documentation were without 

 precedent in the history of the Conference. The Drafting Committee expresses its 

 appreciation to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, the Secretary 

 of the Committee and the other members of the Secretariat for their truly 

 remarkable and tireless efforts throughout the intersessional meeting. The 

 availability of a computerized text greatly facilitated the task of identifying 

 .and dealing with recurring words and phrases. 



Textual review progress 



'i. The complexity and importance of the task of the Drafting Committee, coupled 

 frith the extraordinary volume of documentation, made it necessary from the opening 

 days of the meeting for the language groups, the co-ordinators and the Drafting 

 Committee to maintain an intensive schedule of meetings in the early morning hours, 

 evr.-ningP, week-ends, holidays and luncheon periods in addition to the regular 

 meetings during United Nations working hours. As a consequence, the Drafting 

 Committee" was able to carry out an article by article textual review of Parts II 

 to X and annexes 1 and 2, and Parts XII to XIV. The recommendations on these 

 Parts which the Drafting Committee has adopted in the course of this meeting are 

 set out in addendum 1 to this report. Other matters regarding these Parts are 

 still under review. During the final two weeks of the session, the Drafting 

 Committee began its article by article textual review of Part XI, in accordance 

 with the time-table proposed by the Conference. Progress has been made by the 

 language groups in the preparation of the article by article textual review of 

 Part XI by the Drafting Committee. For lack of time it did not prove possible to 

 commence an article by article textual review of the Preamble, Part I (Use of 

 Terms), Part XV (Settlement of Disputes), Part XVI (General Provisions) and 

 Part XVII (Final Clauses) and the related annexes. A list of the Informal Papers 

 and Language Group Recommendations is set out in addendum 2 to this report. 



5. Because of the large volume of work, the Drafting Committee concentrated on 

 those drafting suggestions that could be -prepared and considered most 

 expeditiously. The fact that the Committee decided to propose or not to propose 

 a drafting change does not imply either agreement or disagreement with reasons 

 prof erred therefor orally or in writing, nor does it imply any conclusion regarding 

 the moaning of any existing text. Moreover, the decision to propose, or not to 

 propose, harmonization of or a distinction between terms used in dx-Terent 

 provisions implies no conclusion as to whether the terms have the same or a 

 different meaning. 



3/ A/C0NF.62/DC/VJP.2. 



