International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference (Unofficial electronic version)	GC(42)/INF/2 21 August 1998 GENERAL Distr. Original: ENGLISH
Forty-second regular session

OPENING OF THE FORTY-FIRST REGULAR SESSION
1. The forty-second regular session of the General Conference will open on Monday, 21 September 1998, at 10 a.m.^1/ It will be held at the Austria Center Vienna (ACV), Am Hubertusdamm 6, 1220 Vienna, next to the Vienna International Centre (VIC).

2. Unless otherwise decided by the Conference, morning meetings will begin at 10 a.m. and afternoon meetings at 3 p.m. Delegates are requested to be in their places by those times in order to allow meetings to start punctually. If evening meetings prove to be necessary, the starting times will be announced during the session.

   PRE-SESSION CONSULTATIONS

3. During the weekend preceding the opening of the Conference's session (Saturday, 19 September, and Sunday, 20 September 1998), facilities for group meetings are being made available on request. Member States are strongly urged to avail themselves of those facilities with a view to achieving agreement on organizational matters (e.g. regarding the composition of the General Committee) before the session opens on Monday, 21 September. This will contribute to the smooth running of the Conference's session. Consequently, Member States should ensure - where necessary - that their representatives arrive in Vienna in time to participate in pre-session group meetings and the associated group decision-making. Meeting rooms should be reserved in good time through the Secretariat's Conference Service Section.

   NOTIFICATION OF THE COMPOSITION OF DELEGATIONS

4. Governments are requested to communicate to the Secretariat the composition of their delegations well in advance. This should be done in writing - by letter or by completing the registration form which has been transmitted to Permanent Missions. Rule 23 of the Conference's Rules of Procedure^2/ provides for each Member State of the Agency to be represented by one Delegate, who may be accompanied by as many assistants (alternates, advisers, etc.) as may be needed. A preliminary edition of members of delegations will be issued on Wednesday, 16 September 1998; only those names that are received by the Secretariat before Friday, 11 September can be included in it. The first official list of members of delegations will be issued on Sunday, 20 September; it will contain information which has been communicated to the Secretariat by 6.00 p.m. on Thursday, 17 September.

5. If, during the session, changes are required in the particulars provided at the time of registration, Delegates are requested to inform Protocol in writing, so that the list of delegation members may be brought up to date.

   CREDENTIALS OF DELEGATES

6. Delegates (but not other members of a delegation) will require credentials specifically for the session, even if they are already accredited to the Agency in some other capacity - for example, as Resident Representative. Credentials have to be delivered in due time; this helps to avoid difficulties, particularly for the General Committee. It is accordingly emphasized that, under Rule 27 of the Rules of Procedure, credentials should be submitted to the Director General not later than Monday, 14 September 1998, issued either by the Head of State or Government or by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Member concerned. If credentials cannot be submitted by Friday, 18 September, Delegates should deliver them directly to the Credentials Officers at the ACV either on Sunday, 20 September, between 2.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. or on the following Monday morning.

   REGISTRATION FOR BADGES

7. Each participant will require a badge with a photograph for entry into the ACV during the session. Badges will be issued by the staff at the Registration Desk to those designated participants who are not already in possession of a valid VIC ground pass. Badges issued for the General Conference will also be valid for entering the VIC.

8. Participants may register on Friday, 18 September 1998 at the Agency's Registration Desk at the VIC between 9.00 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. and on Sunday, 20 September, between 2.00 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. at the ACV. Registration will continue throughout the week of the Conference's session at the Registration Desk at the ACV.

9. Participants also attending the meetings of the Board of Governors which start on Monday, 14 September 1998 may register simultaneously for both the Board's meetings and the Conference's regular session at the Agency's Registration Desk at the VIC between 8.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m. on Monday, 14 September and Tuesday, 15 September, provided that they inform the Secretariat of their intention to do so before Friday, 11 September.

   DOCUMENTS

10. Delegates are reminded that General Conference documentation is available electronically and are urged to make full use of this service so as to reduce the costs to the Agency of printing and distributing hard copies of documents. (The address is http://www.iaea.or.at/GC/gc42/documents/). Each delegation is urged to visit the Documents Distribution Centre in room FM152 at the VIC not later than Friday, 18 September 1998, and specify its requirements for documents produced during the Conference on a form which will be provided for this purpose. If this is not possible, delegations should apply to the Documents Station at the ACV either on Sunday, 20 September, between 2.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. or on the following Monday morning.

11. Before the opening of the session, one complete set of the Conference documents already issued will be made available on request to each delegation. All documents produced during the session, including the Conference Journal containing the daily programme, and other notices will also be available at the Documents Station at the ACV.

12. Delegates wishing to submit draft resolutions or other documents to the Conference during the session are requested to provide the Conference Secretary or the appropriate Committee Secretary with the text as early as possible.

    SPEAKERS IN THE GENERAL DEBATE

13. Until the beginning of the Conference's session on Monday, 21 September 1998, requests for inscription on the list of speakers in the general debate should be made directly, either personally or in writing, to the Secretariat of the Policy-making Organs (VIC, room A 2871). As Member States were informed by document GC(42)/INF/1, issued on 11 May 1998, inscription on the list of speakers started on 15 June 1998; a ballot was taken at 11.00 a.m. on that day in order to determine the order of priority among the Member States whose representatives had - between 10.00 a.m. and 11.00 a.m. - personally made a request for inscription in the list^3/. Member States requesting, after 11.00 a.m. on 15 June, inscription on the list are being added in the order in which they make such requests. It should be noted, however, that the practice of giving priority to Ministers participating in the general debate will continue.

14. Delegates who have not inscribed their names on the list by the beginning of the session but wish to speak in the general debate are requested to contact the official responsible for maintaining the speakers' list, who will have a desk in Conference Room A (where the plenary meetings will take place). Delegates should also contact that official if they wish to speak on other items at plenary meetings.

15. The general debate usually extends over about four days of the Conference's sessions. With a view to making the best use of time available during the forthcoming session, which is expected to last five days only, Member States may wish to consider the desirability of making group statements - a practice which is being followed in other UN organizations.

    STATEMENTS IN THE GENERAL DEBATE

16. To make more efficient use of the general debate, Delegates are invited to keep the duration of their statements to 15 minutes by focusing on the main points which they wish to make. Copies of the full texts (in the original language) will, if Delegates so request, be made available to other Delegates during the session.

17. To facilitate interpretation, texts of statements to be delivered should be handed to the Conference Officer in advance. It is of considerable help if the texts of statements provided to the Secretariat are typed with double line spacing.

    WORKING LANGUAGES AND INTERPRETATION

18. The working languages of the Conference are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, and statements made in any one of these languages will be interpreted simultaneously into the others. If Delegates wish to make a speech in a language other than the working languages, they should, under Rule 87 of the Rules of Procedure, themselves arrange for interpretation into one of the working languages. Delegates are asked to provide the Secretariat with a written text of their speech in advance in that working language.

    PLEDGES OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION FUND FOR 1998

19. On 30 June 1998 the Informal Working Group on the Financing of Technical Assistance agreed to recommend to the Board of Governors that the target figure for Member States' contributions to the Technical Co-operation Fund for the year 1999 be fixed at US$ 73 million. The Board at its September meeting will address this issue and recommend the target figure for 1999 to the General Conference for its approval. Subject thereto and in order to facilitate Member States' pledging to the Technical Co-operation Fund during the 42nd regular session of the General Conference, the Secretariat was requested to announce the 1999 target on a provisional basis.

20. Consequently, a circular letter indicating Member States' individual shares of the target (calculated on the basis of the base rates of assessment applicable for 1999) was addressed to Member States on 10 July 1998. Before the regular session opens, a document will be circulated for the purpose of notifying delegates of the contributions that Members have pledged themselves to make^4/. It would be greatly appreciated if Governments facilitated the timely preparation of this document by communicating their pledges to the Director General as soon as they are in a position to do so. During the session, it will be possible to communicate pledges to the Contributions Officer, who will have a desk in Conference Room A and will arrange for updated versions of the document to be issued.

    SCIENTIFIC FORUM ORGANIZED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE CONFERENCE'S SESSION

21. As part of the efforts to streamline the work of the General Conference, the Secretariat has, with the endorsement of the Board of Governors, restructured this year's traditional scientific programme by initiating a scientific forum on a chosen theme, with the aim of introducing a higher degree of scientific focus into the work of the General Conference. This year the Scientific Forum is on the theme 'Nuclear Technology in Relation to Water Resources and the Aquatic Environment'. The proposed programme of discussions, to run between 22-24 September 1998, is as follows.
    Tuesday, 22 September 1998

    10.00 a.m. - 01.00 p.m. :	Session 1 -	Water Resources
    03.00 p.m. - 06.00 p.m. :	Session 2 -	Sea Transport of Radioactive and Nuclear Materials

    Wednesday, 23 September 1998

    10.00 a.m. - 01.00 p.m. :	Session 3 -	Monitoring Radioactivity in the Aquatic Environment
    03.00 p.m. - 06.00 p.m. :	Session 4 -	Nuclear Techniques in Studies of the Aquatic Environment

    Thursday, 24 September 1998

    10.00 a.m. - 01.00 p.m. :	Session 5 -	Impact Assessment
    03.00 p.m. - 03.45 p.m. :	(Group I) -	Visit to Isotope Hydrology Laboratory (VIC)
    04.00 p.m. - 04.45 p.m. :	(Group II) -	Visit to Isotope Hydrology Laboratory (VIC)

    All sessions will take place in Conference Room C (ACV)

    SENIOR REGULATORS MEETING

22. The meeting will take place on the afternoon of Wednesday, 23 and all day Thursday, 24 September 1998, and the theme will be "Regulatory Challenges". The provisional programme is as follows:

    Wednesday (p.m.) :	- Future regulatory challenges
    Thursday (a.m.) :	- Assessing regulatory effectiveness
    	- Safety standards
    Thursday (p.m.) :	- Research facilities
    	- The "millennium bug"

    Discussions will be conducted in English only.

    The meetings will be held in Meeting Room II, 7th floor of Building C, VIC. Further information may be obtained from the Department of Nuclear Safety (Tel.: 2060/22700).

    TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION MEETINGS

    (i) AFRA/ARCAL/RCA and Regional Technical Co-operation Programme for Europe.

    (ii) Joint Meetings of Chairpersons and Representatives of AFRA, ARCAL, RCA.

23. There will be meetings of groups and representatives of Regional Co-operative Agreements (AFRA, ARCAL, RCA) and Regional TC Programmes (Europe). Individual group meetings will be followed by a joint meeting of group Chairpersons and Representatives.

24. The timetable and location of Technical Co-operation meetings are as follows:

    Preliminary RCA Meeting :	Sunday, 20 September 1998 from 3.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. (Meeting Room O of ACV (2nd floor)
    AFRA :	Tuesday, 22 September 1998 from 10.00 a.m. to 12.00 noon
    ARCAL :	Tuesday, 22 September 1998 from 3.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.
    RCA :	Wednesday, 23 September 1998 from 9.00 a.m. to 12.00 noon and from 2.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.
    EUROPE :	Thursday, 24 September 1998 from 10.00 a.m. to 12.00 noon
    Tripartite AFRA/ARCAL/RCA :	Thursday, 24 September 1998 from 3.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m.

    The meetings, unless otherwise indicated, will be held in Meeting Room V, 7th floor of Building C, VIC.

    (iii) Consultations with Member States

25. Consultations with the representatives of most Member States which receive technical assistance will be held prior to the Conference sessions. For those delegations present in Vienna only during the General Conference, and for specific issues and/or special problems, meetings will be arranged during the General Conference.

    ADDITIONAL MEETINGS

26. The following additional meetings have currently been scheduled:
    1. Round Table Discussion

       A panel will be convened in the form of an Open-ended round table discussion on the challenges of and prospects for nuclear power in the different regions of the world. Senior nuclear executives responsible for the development of nuclear power will be invited to present their views on key issues, notably addressing long-term strategies for the development of nuclear power and waste management and the future role of nuclear power in their respective countries. This event will take place at 3.00 p.m. on Thursday 24 September 1998 in Conference Room C at the ACV.

    2. Briefing on Nuclear Liability

       A briefing meeting on liability for nuclear damage will be held to familiarise representatives of Member States with the newly adopted instruments on liability, the Protocol to Amend the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability and the Convention on Supplementary Compensation. This event will take place at 3.00 p.m. on Tuesday 22 September 1998 in Meeting Room L/M at the ACV (1st floor).

    3. Demonstration of New Safeguards Equipment and Techniques

       A presentation will be given of the development and implementation of new safeguards equipment and techniques, in particular measurement equipment, remote monitoring and satellite imagery. This event, which will incorporate a demonstration of selected equipment and techniques, will take place at 3.00 p.m. on Thursday, 24 September 1998 in Foyer B of the ACV (2nd floor).

    EXHIBITS AND DISPLAYS

27. The following exhibits and displays have currently been scheduled:
    1. Iter Exhibit

       There will be an exhibit on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which will include an ITER model, samples of relevant equipment and photographic, video and other explanatory materials.

    2. Personnel Matters

       The Division of Personnel will be presenting a Personnel Information Centre, to introduce the newly-printed recruitment brochure A Professional Assignment for Peace and Development. In addition, the IAEA staffing statistics will be demonstrated on a multi-media display and current IAEA Vacancy Notices for Professional posts will also be made available.

    3. Information Display (INTERNET) Corner

       There will be an "Internet Corner" in which the IAEA homepage WORLDATOM and the many databases and other applications developed by the IAEA and accessible to Member States, will be demonstrated. Also, as usual, the INIS (International Nuclear Information System) stand will provide information in printed and other forms about the INIS database and delegates will be able to take advantage of the availability of the database for individual searches which could be performed by INIS staff who will be present at the Corner.

    EXTERNAL E-MAIL SERVICE

28. Delegates will be able to receive and send electronic mail during the Conference.

29. The public address is: "GENCONF98@IAEA.ORG". Senders should specify the recipient's name and country in the subject line in order to ensure that the message is allocated to the proper delegate. Messages sent to this e-mail address may be picked up by delegates at the information desk. This e-mail address may be used only to receive messages.

30. In addition to the above general e-mail address, delegates may register during the Conference for an individual e-mail address valid for the duration of the General Conference. Computers will be available so that delegates can send and receive e-mail messages using their individual e-mail address.

ACCOMMODATION FOR DELEGATIONS
1. Hotels in Vienna are usually heavily booked during the months of September and October. It is therefore important to reserve accommodation as far in advance as possible. Delegates are advised to make their bookings either direct with the hotel or through their Permanent Mission or Embassy/Consulate in Vienna.

   CURRENCY

2. Bank notes, travellers' cheques and letters of credit may be brought into Austria without restriction but, as not all currencies are in equal demand, a few may not be easily saleable. Departing visitors may take with them the foreign currency and securities they brought into the country and any amount in Austrian Schillings. It is, however, recommended that Conference participants keep the receipts relating to all major currency exchange transactions in case they need to re-exchange currencies on their departure from Austria.

   PARKING

3. Parking facilities will be available on parking decks 1 and 2 of the ACV. For official cars with chauffeurs, red stickers entitling the cars to be driven to the main entrance of the ACV will be issued; for other cars General Conference and VIC ground passes will suffice as identification for free parking in this area.

   VIC COMMISSARY

4. In accordance with the Agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Austrian Government, the heads of delegations of Member States participating in the General Conference are entitled to commissary cards for the duration of the Conference's session.

5. Any questions in connection with the issuance of commissary cards to the heads of delegations should be directed to the Protocol Office.

   RECEPTIONS AND OTHER EVENTS TAKING PLACE DURING THE CONFERENCE

6. The organizers or sponsors of receptions and other events to be arranged during the Conference are invited to contact the Protocol Office if they wish an announcement regarding such events to be included in the Conference Journal.

^4/ The corresponding document of last year was GC(41)/27.

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