AGLC4 Rule 9.2.13: Official Documents of the United Nations: Pinpoint References

Pinpoints go at the end of the citation. Resolutions, decisions and treaty-like documents are pinpointed with the rule 3.1.4 abbreviations, using para alone for operative paragraphs and Preamble para for preambular ones. Reports, decisions and documents like secondary sources are pinpointed to paragraphs where they exist, optionally with the page as well.

AGLC4 page 152

Format

Quoted from the Guide, page 152
Preamble para Number

A boxed element is filled in with the source's details; everything outside a box is written exactly as shown.

Formatting

  • The pinpoint is the last element of the citation, after a single space.
  • Paragraph is abbreviated para (plural paras), lower case, with no full stop.
  • Compound pinpoints have no commas between their parts.
  • Operative paragraphs take para and the number only.
  • Preambular paragraphs take Preamble para and the number; Preamble is capitalised. Unnumbered preambular paragraphs are numbered in order in Arabic numerals.
  • For reports and similar documents with both pages and paragraphs, the paragraph must be given and the page may precede it after a space; paragraph numbers are in square brackets.
  • Ranges use an unspaced en dash, with page numbers shortened and each paragraph number bracketed separately.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 152
  1. 33
    2005 World Summit Outcome, GA Res 60/1, UN Doc A/RES/60/1 (24 October 2005) paras 138–9.
  2. 34
    SC Res 1717, UN Doc S/RES/1717 (13 October 2006) Preamble paras 3–4.
  3. 35
    Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35: The Fall of Srebrenica, UN Doc A/54/549 (15 November 1999) 6 [3]–[4].
  4. 36
    Committee against Torture, Decision: Communication No 227/2003, 37th sess, UN Doc CAT/C/37/D/227/2003 (14 December 2006) [8.6]–[8.7] (‘AAC v Sweden’).

Not

Quoted from the Guide, page 152
  • ‘pt B, para 2’
    parts of a compound pinpoint are not separated by commas

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 152
  • ‘paragraph’
  • ‘para’
  • ‘pt B para 2’
  • ‘Preamble para 3’

See also

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.

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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.