AGLC4 Rule 9.2: Official Documents of the United Nations
A UN document is cited using whichever of the listed elements it has, in the listed order. When the document can easily be found online by its UN document number in an official database, the elements from official records through to supplement may be left out. The same approach can be used for documents of the WHO, the ILO and similar bodies, with their own document numbers.
AGLC4 page 142
Formatting
- Elements appear in this order: author, title, resolution or decision number, official records, committee number, session and part, meeting number, agenda item, supplement, UN document number, full date, annex, pinpoint.
- Every element that comes before the UN document number is followed by a roman comma.
- The elements after the document number take no separating punctuation, except that the full date is in round brackets.
- Ordinal numbers are written in figures with superscript letters (rule 1.10.1).
- Abbreviations such as sess, mtg, plen, Supp No and Comm carry no full stops (rule 1.6.1), but full stops that form part of a UN document number are kept.
- The author is roman, the title is italic, and the abbreviated elements are roman.
- The official records elements (rules 9.2.4 to 9.2.9) may be omitted when the document is readily available online by its document number.
- For other international organisations the organisation's own document prefix replaces UN Doc.
Example
Quoted from the Guide, page 142- 2Millennium Summit of the United Nations, GA Res 54/254, UN Doc A/RES/54/254 (23 March 2000, adopted 15 March 2000) para 3. [Need not be: Millennium Summit of the United Nations, GA Res 54/254, UN GAOR, 54th sess, 93rd plen mtg, Agenda Item 49(b), Supp No 49, UN Doc A/RES/54/254…]
Not
Quoted from the Guide, page 142- [Need not be: Millennium Summit of the United Nations, GA Res 54/254, UN GAOR, 54th sess, 93rd plen mtg, Agenda Item 49(b), Supp No 49, UN Doc A/RES/54/254…]the long form with official records details is allowed but unnecessary when the document can be found online by its number
Forms in the rule
Quoted from the Guide, page 142- ‘WHO’
- ‘ILO’
- ‘WHO Doc WHO/EVD/OHE/PED/16.1 Rev. 2’
The elements of a UN document citation, with an example of each and the governing rule (the examples come from different documents)
Quoted from the Guide, page 142| Element | Example | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Author | H S Amerasinghe, | 9.2.1 |
| Title | Informal Single Negotiating Text Part IV Presented by the President of the Conference, | 9.2.2 |
| Resolution or Decision Number | GA Res 3314, | 9.2.3 |
| Official Records | UN GAOR, | 9.2.4 |
| Committee Number | 4th Comm, | 9.2.5 |
| Session (and Part) Number | 34th sess, / 28th sess, 1st pt, | 9.2.6 |
| Meeting Number | 75th mtg, / 46th plen mtg, | 9.2.7 |
| Agenda Item | Agenda Item 2, | 9.2.8 |
| Supplement | Supp No 3, | 9.2.9 |
| UN Document Number | UN Doc A/RES/150 | 9.2.10 |
| Full Date | (20 August 2008) | 9.2.11 |
| Annex | annex I | 9.2.12 |
| Pinpoint Reference | [2] | 9.2.13 |
Rules under this one
- 9.2.1 Official Documents of the United Nations: Author
- 9.2.2 Official Documents of the United Nations: Title
- 9.2.3 Resolution and Decision Number
- 9.2.4 Official Records
- 9.2.5 Committee Number
- 9.2.6 Session (and Part) Number
- 9.2.7 Meeting Number
- 9.2.8 Agenda Item
- 9.2.9 Supplement
- 9.2.10 UN Document Number
- 9.2.11 Official Documents of the United Nations: Full Date
- 9.2.12 Annex
- 9.2.13 Official Documents of the United Nations: Pinpoint References
- 9.2.14 Documents of Multiple Organs
See also
- Rule 9.2.1: Official Documents of the United Nations: Author
- Rule 9.2.2: Official Documents of the United Nations: Title
- Rule 9.2.3: Resolution and Decision Number
- Rule 9.2.4: Official Records
- Rule 9.2.5: Committee Number
- Rule 9.2.6: Session (and Part) Number
- Rule 9.2.7: Meeting Number
- Rule 9.2.8: Agenda Item
- Rule 9.2.9: Supplement
- Rule 9.2.10: UN Document Number
- Rule 9.2.11: Official Documents of the United Nations: Full Date
- Rule 9.2.12: Annex
- Rule 9.2.13: Official Documents of the United Nations: Pinpoint References
- Rule 9.2.14: Documents of Multiple Organs
- Rule 9.6: Commonly Cited Documents
- Rule 1.6.1: Full Stops
- Rule 1.10.1: Numbers
Check your footnotes against these rules
Paste your paper into the free AGLC4 checker and each footnote is graded against the Guide, with the rule it breaks. To write a citation from scratch, use the AGLC4 citation generator.
Formats, examples, passages, tables and the forms marked Not are quoted from the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, Melbourne University Law Review Association, 2018), with the page of the Guide they appear on. Titles, summaries and explanations are our own.