Determining the issue to be voted on

Reading out proposals or amendments prior to the vote

At the 1974–77 Geneva Humanitarian Law Conference, the representative of Libya requested that ‘each article be read out before a vote was taken, in order to identify clearly the article on which representatives were voting’. The representative of Canada commented that ‘it was true that at certain conferences where perhaps there were not so many articles to be considered articles were read out before the vote … As a rule, an article should not be read out before the vote unless a representative specially asked for it.’ The President accepted the Canadian proposal and the Conference acted accordingly.

Declarations as part of a decision?

At a 2002 meeting of the Council of the IMO, a representative requested that ‘comments made expressing discontent with the [issue decided] should also be reflected in the summary of decisions’. In support of this request it was argued that ‘a proposal made by one delegation and supported by another delegation, and which had not been opposed, should constitute a decision of the Council’. The Secretary-General of the IMO responded that ‘those comments did not constitute a decision and would be covered in the summary record’. The Chairman adopted the position of the Secretary-General and proposed to the Council that it ‘note’ the comments ‘as reflected in the summary records’.