Key Documents of the Ramsar Convention

Recommendation 5.15 on the Convention's working languages

5th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties
Kushiro, Japan
9-16 June 1993

Recommendation 5.15: Working languages of the Conference of the Contracting Parties

NOTING that the implementation of the Convention in Spanish-speaking countries has been greatly assisted by the provision of interpretation facilities to and from Spanish at meetings of the Conference of the Contracting Parties;

EXPRESSING ITS GRATITUDE to the host country, Japan, for the arrangements made at the present meeting for Spanish to be a working language;

APPRECIATING the provision at the present meeting of interpretation facilities to and from Japanese, which made the deliberations of the meeting accessible to a much larger number of participants;

EMPHASIZING the need to ensure that interpretation facilities to and from the local vernacular language are available at future meetings of the Conference of the Contracting Parties;

TAKING NOTE OF the request by the many Arabic-speaking countries attending the present meeting that Arabic should be a working language of the Conference;

AWARE THAT adoption of Arabic as a working language of the Conference would encourage the accession of many new Contracting Parties and the improved implementation of the Convention in existing Contracting Parties;

THE CONFERENCE OF THE CONTRACTING PARTIES

RECOMMENDS THAT the Contracting Parties, the Standing Committee and the Bureau ensure that facilities for interpretation to and from the local vernacular language are available at future meetings of the Conference;

CALLS ON the Convention Bureau to investigate the possibility of adopting Arabic as a working language of the Conference and to advise the Standing Committee on the financial and other implications of so doing;

REQUESTS Arabic-speaking Contracting Parties and potential Contracting Parties to assist the Bureau in seeking the necessary funding support for the adoption of Arabic as a working language of the Conference; and

FURTHER REQUESTS existing Arabic-speaking Contracting Parties to encourage other Arabic-speaking countries which are not yet Contracting Parties to join the Convention.

For more information about the Resolutions and Recommendations of the Kushiro COP or the Ramsar Convention itself, please contact: the Ramsar Convention Bureau, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland (tel +41 22 999 0170, fax +41 22 999 0169, e-mail ). Posted 27 January 1997, updated 9 March 2000, Dwight Peck, Ramsar.