Annual reports
The Councils and the other UN organs submit the annual reports (supplements) of their activities to the General Assembly for approval. They are published as Supplements to the Official Records of the General Assembly.
Supplements, reports of UN bodies
There are, at present, about 50 such supplements each year. The amount may vary due to ad hoc committees, conferences, etc. The supplements give a comprehensive overview of the activities of the UN organs for the year listing their documents and reports.
Supplement 1, Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization
No 1 in the series of supplements to the General Assembly is the Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization. This is an important plan of action for the work of the UN and it is often issued as an individual publication. It summarizes major activities of the UN around the world cites to other reports with more in-depth information. Symbol pattern: A/session/1, example: A/68/1.
Supplement 2, Report of the Security Council
The report gives an overview of all Security Council actions on procedural matters on regional-, country-, or subject-specific topics and cites key resolutions related to peacekeeping. Symbol pattern: A/session/2, example: A/68/2.
Supplement 3, Report of the Economic and Social Council
The report includes:
- recommendations to the General Assembly, usually draft resolutions for General Assembly consideration
- summarizes high-level and thematic segments of substantive session
- organization sessions lists actions on drafts before the Council, including vote, but not the full text of resolutions. Symbol pattern: A/session/3/Rev.1, example: A/67/3/Rev.1.
Supplement 4, Report of the International Court of Justice
Summarizes the Court's activities for the year. Includes information about:
- Contentious cases
- Advisory proceedings
- Administrative activities
Symbol pattern: A/session/4, example: A/68/4
Supplements from the Trusteeship Council
The Trusteeship Council is no longer active
The last report of the Trusteeship Council included as a supplement to the GAOR was in the 30th session, covering 1974-1975.
Supplements on the UN Budget
Nos 5 and 6 in the series of supplements to the General Assembly is a compilation of budgetary and financial questions.
Find supplements
The supplements to the General Assembly have the following documentary symbols:
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A/ General Assembly |
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-/session number |
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-/current number |
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Ex. A/55/1 General Assembly, 55th session, no 1 = Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization (for the year 2000) |
- See the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, New York, research guide on Reports of UN Bodies.
- A list of all supplements from 1946- can be retrieved through the database UN-I-QUE.
Key UN documents
- UN Charter in Swedish | in English
- UN System Chart
- Yearbook of the United Nations
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish | in English
- Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
- Statue of the International Court of Justice
UN documents and publications in catalogues and databases
- United Nations Digital Library offers UN documents and open access publications, UN voting data and speeches, UN maps, Content in 6+ languages. Replaces the traditional online catalogue UNBISnet.
- UN iLibrary UN publications online covering different topics.
- ODS full-text UN documents published from 1993 onward and scanned documents published between 1946 and 1993 in the official languages of the UN.
- Daily list of documents (ODS). Documents published for the day, with full text links, can be found in the United Nations full text database ODS.
- UNBIS Thesaurus a multilingual database of the controlled vocabulary used to describe UN documents.
- Index to proceedings is an annual bibliographic guide to the proceedings and documentation of the major UN organs. The index includes:
- a list of all documents
- a comprehensive subject index
- an index to speeches
- a voting chart of resolutions
- United Nations Documents Index (United Nations Digital Library) References to all documents by subject area are published. A collection of indexes is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library, Uppsala, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva.
- All UN documents from 1993-.
- All resolutions of the Principal Organs from 1946-.
- All Security Council plenary documents from 1946- in English, French and Spanish.
- All supplements to the General Assembly Official Records (GAOR) from 1946-.
- All General Assembly plenary meeting records from 1946- in English, French and Spanish.
- Older documents are being scanned: Update on UN Digitization Programme.