Nested conditions in a Council-style note
You are preparing an English-language Council-style note for translation into German. The operative paragraph reads: “The Secretariat shall, by 15 March, circulate the draft agenda to delegations. Where a delegation has not commented within five working days of circulation, its silence shall be construed as agreement to the items listed, except items marked ‘reserve’. Any delegation may, notwithstanding the above, request that an item be held over to the next meeting, provided that the request is made in writing before the chair opens the discussion on that item.” The meeting is on 22 March. A colleague asks whether a delegation that says nothing by 20 March has agreed to everything. You also notice that the note does not say who marks an item “reserve” or whether the day of circulation counts.
1. Set out the obligation, the actor, and the deadline in plain English.
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The actor is the Secretariat. The obligation is to circulate the draft agenda to delegations. The deadline is by 15 March. The meeting date, 22 March, is context but does not change that obligation. The paragraph also creates a delegation-level right: any delegation may request that an item be held over to the next meeting. That right is not a Secretariat obligation, and it is subject to a separate written-request condition. In plain English: the Secretariat must send the draft agenda to delegations no later than 15 March; delegations then have five working days to comment, and they may ask for an item to be held over if they do so in writing before the chair opens discussion on it.
2. Explain the effect of a delegation’s silence and the two exceptions.
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Silence after five working days from circulation is construed as agreement to the items listed. This is a deemed-agreement rule, not merely an absence of objection. There are two exceptions. First, items marked “reserve” are excluded from deemed agreement, so silence does not convert them into agreed items. Second, any delegation may request a holdover of an item to the next meeting, even where silence would otherwise imply agreement, provided the request is in writing and is made before the chair opens discussion on that item. The phrase notwithstanding the above makes the holdover right override the deemed-agreement result. A delegation that says nothing by 20 March therefore has not necessarily agreed to everything: reserved items and any valid holdover request must be checked.
3. Identify one ambiguity that matters for translation and draft a precise translator’s query.
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The material ambiguity is who marks an item “reserve” and when. The text says items marked ‘reserve’ but does not say whether the marking is done by the Secretariat, by a delegation, or by the chair, nor whether it must appear on the circulated draft agenda. This matters because the exception determines the scope of deemed agreement. A precise query: “Who marks an item as ‘reserve’, and must that marking appear on the draft agenda circulated by the Secretariat under the first sentence?” A second ambiguity is whether the day of circulation counts towards the five working days. That should be queried separately, because translating within five working days of circulation without a convention could shift the deadline by one day.