No. 802                                     Geneva, 21 April 1994


CONCERNING:


           Decisions of the Conference of the Parties


1.The  Standing Committee is currently conducting a review of the
  Resolutions of the Conference of the Parties. The main  purpose
  of  the review is to remove from the Resolutions the parts that
  are  conflicting or duplicative, to repeal the parts  that  are
  no  longer  current, and to put together the  parts  that  deal
  with  the same subject, in order to make the Resolutions easier
  to understand and to implement.

2.As  a part of this exercise, the Secretariat, on behalf of  the
  Standing  Committee, is preparing a series of draft resolutions
  to  consolidate  current Resolutions, and a document  proposing
  to  the Conference to repeal a number of Resolutions, and parts
  of  Resolutions,  that are now considered to  be  defunct.  The
  draft  consolidated resolutions contain the  texts  of  current
  Resolutions,   avoiding  changes  in  substance  except   where
  necessary  to  ensure consistency. The Standing  Committee  has
  agreed  that these drafts should be considered at the beginning
  of the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties.

3.In   carrying  out  its  review,  the  Standing  Committee  has
  considered  the need for a clear view of how decisions  of  the
  Conference of the Parties would best be recorded in future,  to
  ensure  that,  after  the  review  process  is  complete,   the
  Resolutions  do not again become more difficult  to  understand
  and  implement  than they need to be. The Committee  has  taken
  into  account the need to avoid a proliferation of  Resolutions
  on  the  same  subject and the need to ensure that Resolutions,
  as  the  soft law of CITES, contain what they need  to  contain
  and nothing more.

4.The  Standing  Committee considered this subject  at  its  31st
  meeting  (Geneva, 21 to 25 March 1994), and agreed to recommend
  the following guidelines.

  Proposed  guidelines for recording decisions of the  Conference
  of the Parties

  To Management Authorities

  When  drafting a resolution that is intended to be  exhaustive,
  or  to  treat a subject comprehensively, or to make significant
  changes  in the way in which a subject is dealt with,  a  Party
  should  prepare the draft so that, if adopted, it will  replace
  and  repeal  all existing Resolutions (or, as appropriate,  the
  relevant paragraphs) on the same subject.
  To Management Authorities and Chairmen of Committees I and II

  Unless   practical  considerations  dictate  otherwise,   draft
  resolutions should not include:

     a)   instructions or requests to Committees, Working  Groups
     or  the  Secretariat, unless they are part  of  a  long-term
     procedure;

     b)  decisions on the presentation of the appendices;

     c)   recommendations (or other forms of decision) that  will
     be  implemented soon after their adoption and will  then  be
     obsolete.

  These types of decisions should be included in a new series  of
  decisions of the Conference of the Parties.

  To the Secretariat

     a)   When  the  Conference of the Parties adopts  any  draft
     resolution  that  is designed merely to add  points  to  the
     recommendations   (or   other   decisions)    in    existing
     Resolutions,  or  to  make a minor  amendment  thereto,  the
     Secretariat  should  replace the existing  Resolution  by  a
     revised version with the agreed changes.

     b)   A  document  should  be compiled,  containing  all  the
     current  decisions that have been made by the Conference  of
     the  Parties and recorded in the Proceedings of the meetings
     of  the Conference. As far as possible, the decisions should
     be  sorted according to the body to which they are directed.
     Where  this  is  not  possible, they  should  be  sorted  by
     subject,   using   the  subjects  of  the  Resolutions   for
     guidance.

       This document should be updated after each meeting of  the
     Conference   of   the   Parties,   to   contain   all    the
     recommendations (or other forms of decision)  that  are  not
     recorded  in  Resolutions  and that  are  still  valid.  The
     Secretariat should distribute to the Parties a copy  of  the
     updated document soon after each meeting of the Conference.

5.As  the  draft consolidated resolutions that have been prepared
  are  not yet ready for distribution, the Secretariat recommends
  that  draft resolutions for discussion at the ninth meeting  of
  the  Conference  of  the  Parties should  be  prepared  by  the
  Parties  in  the  usual  way. When the Secretariat  receives  a
  draft  resolution  on a subject for which a draft  consolidated
  resolution  has  been prepared, it will, in  consultation  with
  the  Party  concerned, draft a revised consolidated  resolution
  with  the  necessary changes in substance. It is proposed  that
  this  revised version would then form the subject of discussion
  on  the issue if the draft consolidated resolutions referred to
  in paragraph 2 are adopted at the beginning of the meeting.