CYIL Vol. 7, 2016

CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ XXXIX. ANTARCTIC TREATY CONSULTATIVE MEETING IN SANTIAGO the ATCM and CEP. However, as the CEP is an advisory body of the Meeting, it is appropriate that it first takes the views and makes recommendations that are later to be adopted by the Meeting after its own deliberations. Although being a purely organizational matter, such a decision may have financial implications for the host country. The ATCM will still remain eight days long, but the Meeting together with the five days CEP will in total mean nine meeting days. In order to increase the efficiency of the Meeting it might be a smart move, but let us see if the next year’s testing bears its fruit. Be that as it may, the rescheduling of the Meeting is only one of the tools for the effective work of the Meeting. Hence, this year Norway and Australia presented a working paper in which they identified some of the key issues that might improve interaction between these two bodies. 7 The working group agreed that documents that were submitted to both the ATCM and CEP should, where possible, specify the issues and questions that were to be discussed by the ATCM and CEP respectively. Such an approach will enable the better coordination of the Chairs, so will the annotated agenda and summary of papers in advance. Further, it would be useful if the Chairs review papers as they are submitted and, should there be a need, to invite the authors to redirect their paper to another part of the Meeting. Another point for discussion at this working group was the timeliness of release of the ATCM Report. It was again Australia who made some preliminary reflections 8 and invited others to present their views on the unsubstantiated practice of the release of the ATCM Report 6 months after the end of the ATCM when the draft report is adopted by the Meeting on the very last day of the Meeting and is available to the participants in all official languages. It was rightly point out that as the working, information and background documents are made public immediately after the end of the Meeting, the public has to wait for half a year to know how they were handled and what the outcomes of the Meeting are. After the Executive Secretary admitted that a preliminary Report publicly available within three month period after the end of the Meeting would not increase the costs of the Report, the Meeting agreed on such early release of the preliminary report which is subject to further editorial changes. Such a decision was accompanied by corresponding Revised Rules of Procedure for the ATCM. 9 Having noted that the next year the term of the current Executive Secretary would expire, a procedure for his selection and appointment needed to be reviewed. The procedure will be the same as the one used at XXXII. ATCM, which means, for instance, a decision taken by majority. The Revised Procedure for Selection and

7 Working paper 50. 8 Working paper 19. 9 Decision D (2016).

477