. Location of the Secretariat

Location of the Secretariat

The Conference of the Parties

1. Decides to consider and take a decision on the location of the Secretariat at its second meeting;

2. Decides to invite Parties interested in hosting the Secretariat to submit their offers to the Secretariat by 31 March 1995;

3. Decides to invite those Parties to include in their offers, to the extent possible, details relating to inter alia:

(a) Facilities to be made available, including offices, meeting rooms and conference facilities;

(b) Availability of institutional support, including programmes of relevance to the Convention, academic programmes and representation of Parties through diplomatic offices;

(c) Direct support, including financial and technical support;

(d) Privileges and immunities to be extended to the Secretariat and its staff, including the nature of the headquarters agreement or other arrangement to be established with the Secretariat and diplomatic privileges for Secretariat staff and families;

(e) State of civic amenities, including health and education facilities.

4. Decides to request the Secretariat to transmit all offers to the Parties, as an official document of the second meeting of the Conference of the Parties, by 31 May 1995;

5. Decides that the second meeting of the Conference of the Parties will not be held in a country making an offer to host the Secretariat;

6. Decides that, at its second meeting, it will make every effort to reach a decision on the location of the Secretariat by consensus. Recognizing the requirement of paragraph 1 of this decision, and, in the event consensus is not possible and, at the time of voting, rule 40, paragraph 1 of the rules of procedure has not been adopted, will for this item:

(a) Take a decision by a two-thirds majority of the Parties present and voting; and

(b) If a two-thirds majority does not emerge for any one offer after the first round of voting, successive rounds will be taken, the offer receiving the least votes being eliminated after each round, until only two offers remain and one receives a two-thirds majority vote of the Parties present and voting.