United Nations

Understanding the document symbols makes UN research much easier. In fact, it is sometimes essential. The UN Office of Documents Control assigns each official UN document a unique number. Although very informative, the Document Symbols System can be confusing and is not intuitive.

For example, the document symbol E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.2/1987/WP.4/Add.1 signifies: the Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Working Group on Contemporary Slavery, year: 1987, working paper no. 4, addendum no. 1.

Documents are divided by organ. It is important to understand the functions of the main organs, because many research sources are divided by organ, and are not cross-searchable. Document symbols are as follows:

A/- for General Assembly;

S/- for the Security Council;

E/- for the Economic and Social Council; and

ST/- for the Secretariat.

(More symbols can be found here).

Certain subsidiary organizations have their own document symbols. For example CRC/C stands for the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Only some of the documents with such symbols are official UN Documents. Some subsidiary organizations' documents may be internal documents only. Although the subsidiary organizations can still assign document numbers to these documents, they are not considered UN Documents and are not part of the depository system. These documents may be available through the subsidiary organizations, but are sometimes not available at all. 

The document symbols are informative beyond the organization designation. Following are a few examples. A more complete description can be found in the United Nations Documentation: Research Guide.

It is important to distinguish between committees and commissions. -/CN stands for a Commission and -/C stands for Committee. There can be a committee and a commission on the same subject. For example, there is a UN Human Rights Committee (document symbol CCPR/C/) and a UN Commission for Human Rights (document symbol E/CN.4/).

Meeting records are important and are a good source for speeches. Meeting records are generally designated with two symbols, -/PV and -/SR. -/PV stands for verbatim records of meetings in the first person (i.e., proces-verbaux), and they are generally only issued for the main organ meetings. -/SR stands for summary records of meetings (abbreviated meeting records in the third person). Providing summary records is the more common (and less expensive) way of reporting meeting events.

Some documents, like those with the symbols -/L and -/R, are not meant for the public. -/L stands for limited distribution (generally draft documents). These documents are not part of the depository. They may appear on theOfficial Document System(ODS) since 1992 (for more information on the ODS, see below). -/R stands for restricted distribution, which means restricted access. These documents can sometimes be viewed at the UN, but not copied.

Changes in documents are indicated by -/Add, signifying an addendum or addition. On the other hand, -/Rev. signifies a revision, completely replacing texts previously issued.

Dates and session numbers are important ways of identifying documents. For the main organs, the first session of the United Nations was in 1945. To determine session numbers, subtract 45 from the year in question. For example, for the year 2000, subtract 45, to find that in the year 2000 the UN is in its 55th session. Note that sessions begin in September. Unfortunately, subsidiary bodies function differently. Their sessions can be numbered according to when they meet, not the session of the United Nations. Thus a subsidiary organization in 2000 could be in its 30th session, or even in its 60th session (if it meets more than once a year).

Note that some document symbols include the year of the document or the session numbers, but others do not. This is due to the different reporting procedures of the different organs and subsidiary bodies. For example, the Economic and Social Council uses the year in their document numbers (ex: E/2000/106), while the General Assembly uses the session in their document numbers (ex: A/RES/53/202). It is also due to historical changes in each body's reporting system. For example, the General Assembly began by numbering their documents sequentially, without regard to year. Only in 1976 did they start to number the sequence fresh each session and include the session number in the document number. The Economic and Social Council made a similar change in 1978, and the Security Council followed suit in 1994. Subsidiary organizations work in their own ways.

Document dates can also be confusing. A document might have several different dates. For instance, the date under the symbol on the document itself is the date of registration of the document. This is the date most commonly used when identifying the document. The date at the bottom of the document, usually near the barcode, is the date the document finished processing. Third, the documents have an issuance date, which can be found by looking at the daily list of documents. Fortunately, exact dates are not required for Bluebook citation.