United Nations resolutions are formal expressions of the opinion or will of United Nations organs. They generally consist of two clearly defined sections: a preamble and an operative part. The preamble generally presents the considerations on the basis of which action is taken, an opinion expressed or a directive given. The operative part states the opinion of the organ or the action to be taken.

The term "decision" is used to designate formal actions, other than resolutions, dealing with non-substantive or routine matters such as elections, appointments, the time and place of meetings and the taking note of reports. They are sometimes also used to record the adoption of a text representing the consensus of the members of a given organ.

Resolutions: 1946-1975

Resolutions of the General Assembly are first published as individual documents, always identified by the prefix A/RES/- . The first 3,541 resolutions adopted by the General Assembly were consecutively numbered. A roman numeral enclosed in parentheses follows the sequential number and indicates the regular (e.g., XXX), special (e.g., S-VI) or emergency special (e.g., ES-V) session at which the resolution was adopted.

Examples:

A/RES/217A (III)	Universal Declaration of Human Rights
A/RES/3201 (S-VI)	Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order
A/RES/2252 (ES-V)	Humanitarian assistance

Resolutions: 1976 onwards

From the 31st session onwards, the system changed: a new numbering sequence is established at the beginning of each session with arabic numerals appearing as the third component of the symbol to indicate the regular (e.g., 56), special (e.g., S-19) or emergency special (e.g., ES-8) session at which the resolution was adopted.

Examples:

A/RES/44/25	Convention on the Rights of the Child
A/RES/S-13/2	United Nations Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development 1986-1990
A/RES/ES-8/2	Question of Namibia

Decisions

Decisions of the General Assembly are not issued as individual documents and, therefore, have no document series symbol assigned to them. Prior to 1976, decisions were unnumbered. Since that time, a numbering system similar to that established for resolutions is used to designate the session at which a particular decision was adopted (e.g., decision 50/411 or decision ES-7/11). Decisions adopted at regular sessions are categorized in the following manner: the first set of numbers is reserved for decisions relating to elections and appointments; the second set for decisions relating to routine matters other than elections and appointments.

Both resolutions and decisions of the General Assembly are compiled into a sessional cumulation, issued specifically for the regular, special or emergency special session at which they were adopted. For special and emergency special sessions as well as originally for regular sessions, this cumulation has traditionally been the final supplement to the Official Records of the General Assembly. However, from the 42nd session (1987-1988) onwards, Supplement No. 49 has been designated to comprise the resolutions and decisions of a given regular session, independent of its sequential position in the list of supplements.

Online research on General Assembly resolutions from the 1st session (1946) onwards can be conducted in UNBISnet. The same database also provides indexing data for decisions starting with the 34th session (1979).

The full text of General Assembly resolutions from the 1st session (1946) onwards is retrievable through UNBISnet, the UN Documentation Centre and the Official Document System of the United Nations (ODS).

Texts of resolutions and/or decisions of committees, commissions and other subsidiary bodies are included in their annual/sessional reports to the parent body. For example, the resolutions of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme are reproduced in its sessional report to the General Assembly (e.g., A/62/25). Complete lists of symbols for the reports of the subsidiary bodies can be found in UN-I-QUE. The full text of recent reports is accessible through UNBISnet and the Official Document System of the United Nations (ODS).