Single texts or separate drafts --- Thanks Kabir. Sometimes the issue surrounds a document so long and complex that competing texts on various subjects creates a monster which can't be discussed sensibly. I saw an example of this when I was in the Australian Mission to the UN in New York in the 1970s. The treaty in question was the draft UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a document well over 100 pages long. A small group, which included Australia, produced the Single Negotiating Text from all the proposals on the table and it was from this document that the eventual Convention emerged.

Source author: Christopher Lamb christopher.lamb17@gmail.com