The Clause Bank: ready-to-adapt resolution clauses by topic

How to use a clause bank without sounding copied

A phrase list tells you how a clause starts. A clause bank gives you the whole clause: the actor, the action, the mechanism, the money and the check. That is the part most drafts leave out, and it is the part that decides whether a resolution survives amendment. Everything below is a starting point. A chair who has read three conferences' worth of drafts will recognise a pasted clause at once, and so will the delegate from the bloc you are trying to win over.

The fix is not to rewrite the words. It is to add what only you can add. Every clause in this bank has square brackets. Filling them well is the whole skill.

The four things to add to every clause you borrow

• Your country's interest. Name the thing your delegation actually cares about. A landlocked state adapting a trade clause adds transit corridors. A small island state adapting a climate clause adds loss and damage. If you cannot say why your country would write this clause, do not sponsor it.
• A number. A percentage, a year, a count of members, a reporting interval. Numbers turn a wish into something a committee can vote on. Use round, defensible numbers and be ready to explain them.
• An owner. Who does it? A named UN body, the Secretary-General, member states on a voluntary basis, a regional organisation. A clause with no owner is a clause nobody implements.
• A deadline. "By the next session", "within 24 months", "every two years". Deadlines are what get cut in merger talks, so start with a slightly ambitious one and give ground there rather than on substance.

Worked example: adapting one clause

Here is a bare clause from the bank:

Requests UNEP to establish a technical assistance programme for [area] in [target countries];

Here is the same clause adapted by a delegate representing a coastal West African state in an environment committee:

Requests the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in cooperation with the African Union and relevant regional fisheries bodies, to establish within 18 months a technical assistance programme on coastal erosion and mangrove restoration, prioritising least developed coastal states, with a first progress report to the UNEP Executive Director and to this body at its next session;

Nothing here is decorative. The regional partner respects existing structures, the 18 months is a deadline you can trade, the priority group says who benefits and the report creates a check.

When not to use a bank clause at all

Do not use a bank clause as your first operative clause. The first operative clause is the one people quote in speeches and it should be written from scratch around your bloc's central idea. Use bank clauses for the supporting architecture: the reporting cycle, the fund, the review, the capacity building. That is where borrowed structure helps and nobody minds.

What makes a clause pass

A clause passes when enough delegations can live with it, not when it is clever. In practice four tests decide that, and experienced delegates run them on every clause before it goes on the board.

1. Funding: who pays, and is it voluntary?

The single fastest way to lose votes is an unfunded mandate or a compulsory contribution. Delegations from states that pay the largest assessed contributions will resist new obligations; delegations from developing states will resist anything they are expected to pay for without support. The phrasing that usually passes:

• funds drawn from voluntary contributions from member states, the private sector and philanthropic partners,
• within existing resources when you are asking a UN body to do something new,
• a pooled or trust fund administered by an existing body rather than a brand new institution.

2. Mechanism: does anything actually happen?

"Encourages states to consider" passes easily and changes nothing. Chairs and judges notice. A clause needs a verb that creates an action and a body that carries it out: establishes, requests, mandates (in the Security Council), creates, convenes. Balance this against test 4: the stronger the verb, the more sovereignty concerns you invite.

3. Sovereignty: does it tell a state what to do inside its borders?

Almost every bloc has members that will vote against a clause that reads as external interference. The standard protections are phrases such as "in accordance with national legislation", "upon the request of the state concerned", "with full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states", and "on a voluntary basis". Use them where they matter, not everywhere, or the resolution becomes toothless.

4. Measurability: could anyone tell if it worked?

A measurable clause names an indicator, a baseline or a report. You do not need statistics. "Reports annually on the number of states that have adopted national action plans" is measurable without a single figure in the resolution.

The trade-off table

Remember too that only the Security Council can make decisions binding on member states. In the General Assembly and its committees, "decides" is appropriate for the body's own procedure (to convene a meeting, to include an item on an agenda), not for obligations on states.