The Purpose of Consultations

The Purpose of Consultation

Delegates usually confer in lounge areas near the GA Hall.

The reasons why delegates will want to consult informally with other delegations include the following:

1. To find out what they know
2. To tell them what you want them to know (e.g., to forewarn them of an initiative planned by you or by others)
3. To ask their opinion (e.g., by “floating” a proposal)
4. To learn their intentions
5. To get their agreement to what you want
6. To plan together in order to develop a proposal or to advance an argument
7. To take decisions about how you will collectively act

Doing this will enable delegates to:

1. Demonstrate that their country is represented and participating in the conference
2. Monitor the conference so as to gauge how it is progressing through its work programme and what agreements are emerging
3. Gather information relevant to their delegation’s objectives at the conference (e.g., the attitude of other delegations concerning particular proposals and assess their intentions)
4. Influence the thinking and actions of others
5. Negotiate
6. Develop and maintain relations with other delegations
7. Enable them to report on what happened to other members of their delegation

The specific tasks undertaken through informal consultations include the following:

1. Developing relationships with other delegates
2. Making positions known to other delegations
3. Gathering general information about attitudes, intentions, and positions of other delegations
4. Assessing who agrees with one’s positions, who opposes them and who agrees with certain components of one’s position but not of all
5. Persuading others to go along with one’s position
6. Negotiating with others to reach a compromise when positions differ

Whom to Consult

Traditionally, informal consultations are said to take place in the corridors. These words are used to differentiate informal consultations from the formal exchanges that take place in the conference room(s) when the conference is in formal session. In fact, such consultations can be conducted anywhere and in many instances delegates will want them to be where they are unlikely to be overheard.

The most readily available and widely used venues are the corridors, lobbies, stairways, coffee shops and cafeterias of the conference building. It is also easy to consult in the conference room, before, after and during a session. And when appropriate, the presiding officer of a meeting or a delegate can request that the meeting be suspended for a certain amount of time to allow delegations to talk informally if they feel this might help achieve consensus on an issue.

If one wants a more private conversation, many conference venues have terraces or gardens and sometimes it is possible to find an unoccupied conference room or office that one can use for a short while. Delegates can invite other delegates to join in at a range of venues (e.g., restaurants) away from the conference.

Informal consultations, be they in small groups of two or three or in larger groups, are essentially private. Also, there is no official record of what is said and the conversation can be tentative or exploratory in nature. This means that delegates may speak much more freely in such conversations than they might in formal sessions of the conference where their words are often recorded.

In some instances, delegates choose to move to the Informal Consultations Room or another location for informal meetings. When this occurs, the Rules of Procedure are suspended as well during the entire time the informal meeting is in session.

The essentially private nature of informal consultations means that delegates can adjust their manner and what they say to a particular audience. They may wish to say privately some things they would not wish to say publicly. It will quickly backfire if they convey different information to different interlocutors and often if they try to hide from other delegates something they are likely to learn from other sources.

The other consequence of the informal nature of corridor conversations is that agreements reached during these talks only engage those who participate and then only informally. Agreements formally engaging the Council can only be reached in a formal session that meets in the Council chamber.