Apparently the first time that the question of the location of the headquarters of the proposed Agency was raised was in the comments that the Austrian Government submitted to the United States with reference to the Negotiating Group draft of the Statute.32 However, this communication did not amount to an invitation and the Working Level Meeting, to which it was submitted, took no action to fix the headquarters location.
Early in the Conference on the Statute the Austrian Government invited the Agency to establish its headquarters in Vienna.33 At that time the draft of the Statute contained only one passing reference to the headquarters of the Agency,34 and gave no indication as to how its location should be chosen.
However the Conference amended Annex I to the Statute to charge the P r e -paratory Commission to:
"Make studies, reports, and recommendations for the first session of the General Conference and for the first meeting of the Board of Gover-nors on subjects of concern to the Agency requiring immediate attention, including... (e) the location of the permanent headquarters of the Agency".35
Taking account of this provision, the Conference on the Statute at the end of its proceedings responded to the Austrian invitation by unanimously adopting a resolution in which it recorded its opinion "that the headquarters of the Agency should be established in Vienna" and requested the Preparatory Commission "to be guided by this preference in drawing up its recommen-dations to the General Conference".36
At its second meeting the Preparatory Commission, noting the r e s o -lution of the Conference, requested its Executive Secretary to p r e p a r e a report "on the needs and availability of facilities for the Agency", appointed a Committee on Permanent Facilities chaired by the President and consisting of the representatives of five of its members to assist the Executive Secre-tary, and invited the Government of Austria to be represented in a consulta-tive capacity on the Committee.37 On the basis of the report of the Execu-tive Secretary and the Committee, and taking into account the p r o g r e s s in negotiating the Headquarters Agreement, the Commission reported to the Board that it wished to endorse the opinion expressed by the Conference on the Statute that the headquarters of the Agency should be established in Vi-enna38 - a decision that had been foreshadowed by the choice of Vienna for the site of the First General Conference. 39
At its fourth meeting on 9 October 1957 the Board considered the report of the Preparatory Commission and passed a resolution in which it recom-mended to the General Conference "that the permanent headquarters of the Agency be located in Vienna".40 The General Conference considered and approved this recommendation on the same day, without adopting a formal resolution.41
NOTES
1 As expressed in Statute Article I.
2 See, respectively, Statute Articles V.E.5 and XIV.A, V.E.10 and VILA, V.E.7 and XVI.A.
3 IAEA/PC/W.41(S)and /Rev.l; IAEA/PC/OR.37.
4 Statute Article V.E.5.
5 IAEA/PC/W.47(S), approved IAEA/PC/OR.40, p.4. Explained in GC. 1/8, paras.1-3.
6 IAEA/PC/OR.37. p.4.
7 The complete lack of discretion of the Director General on whether to convene special sessions of the Gener-al Conference is expressed by the word " shGener-all" in the first sentence of the Statute Article V. A, which was deliber-ately substituted by the Conference on the Statute for the "may" that had appeared in the Working Level Meeting draft(IAEA/CS/Art.V/Amend.7; IAEA/CS/OR.18. pp.42-43; IAEA/CS/OR.22, p.38).
8 GC.1/8.
9 GC.1/9 and/Corr.l and/Add.1.
10 Section 7 . 3 . 1 .
11 GC. 1/9, Supplementary Rule R.
12 Idem, Supplementary Rule F.
13 Idem, Supplementary Rules I, L and M.
14 Idem, Supplementary Rule K.
15 Idem, Supplementary Rule P, which was designed to implement the final sentence of Statute Article VI.D.
16 Idem, Supplementary Rule H. Even if the Rules of Procedure had already been in force at the moment of convening the first regular session, neither of the two officers mentioned in these Rules ( i . e . , the delegate from whose delegation the President of the previous session had been elected or the Director General) existed at that time.
17 Idem, Supplementary Rule G(a).
18 GC(I)/DEC/2.
19 One moot legal question is whether the special session was convened at the request of the majority of the members of the Agency (as required by Statute Article V.A and as foreseen by Supplementary RuleB(GC. 1/9), or by a decision of the Conference itself taken at the first regular session (see GC(I)/DEC/8).
20 The first regular session met 1-3 October 1957 and the first special session 7-23 October.
21 GC.1/10.
22 GC(I)/DEC/5and6.
23 4 October 1957.
24 Though there was no special procedural rule assigning him that function.
25 GC.l(S)/INF/7; GOV/INF/5. See Rules 36(e), 59 and 60 and Section 8 . 4 . 1 . 26 Idem, Rule 21.
27 GC.1/9, Supplementary Rule K.
28 Sections 9.2.3, 9 . 2 . 4 .
29 Section 3 . 2 . 2 . 1 and especially note 27 thereto.
30 Technically this decision, taken on 7 October 1957, was defective since Mr. Jolles' status as Secretary General of the General Conference was to cease with the adjournment of the first special session (Supple-mentary Rule K( GC. 1/9)) and in any case could not last longer than the duration of his position as Executive Secre-tary of the Preparatory Commission (Section 3.2.2.1); it would have been better to name him directly.
31 Though the Board's decision refrained from calling him by that title (which had originally been proposed for the contingency that Mr. Cole would immediately assume office and then delegate his functions), as a practical matter the style: "Acting Director General" was used in Board and Secretariat documents (e.g.,SEC/INS/19-28) after the first special session of the General Conference adjourned (and the title of Secretary General of the Conference thereby lapsed).
32 WLM Doc. 3 (comment by Austria).
33 There appears to be no official record of the invitation, but it is recited by the Austrian representative in IAEA/CS/OR.4, p.41. Even earlier, the United States had announced that it favoured Vienna (IAEA/CS/
OR. 3. p. 13).
34 In Article VI.G; the similar reference in Article V.A was added by the Conference.
35 Statute, Annex I, para.C.5(e).
36 IAEA/CS/11. It is not entirely clear why the Conference on the Statute considered that this recommendation, should be addressed to the General Conference, rather than to the Board - as was also possible under the wording of the Annex to the Statute, and as was actually done by the Preparatory Commission.
37 IAEA/PC/2. The following five members were subsequently appointed by the President at the 4t n Meeting of the Commission: Belgium, India, USSR, United Kingdom, United States of America.
38 This recommendation is referred to in the preamble of the Board's resolution reported to the General Confer-ence (GC.1(S)/18). Originally, the Commission had evidently intended to address this recommendation also to the General Conference - see reference in GC.l/INF/1 to document GC.1/6 ("Recommendation by the Preparatory Commission concerning the Permanent Seat of the Agency"), which was never issued.
39 Though the Commission had recognized that a decision to recommend Vienna for the permanent seat did not require that the first General Conference also be held there (IAEA/PC/OR.8, 9).
40 GC,1(S)/18. The basis on which the Board referred this decision to the General Conference is discussed in Section 7.2.2(d); see also supra note 36.
41 GC(I)/DEC/11.
STRUCTURE
PRINCIPAL INSTRUMENTS
IAEA Statute, Articles XVIII. A-C; XXI; XXII. A; XXIII Amendment of Article VI. A. 3 of the Statute (INFCIRC/41)
General Conference Rules of Procedure fGCfVm/INF/60> 21. 69 (b), 100-103.
5.1. FORM AND ENTRY INTO FORCE