General

These guidelines aim to ensure that papers are submitted to the Secretariat in sufficient time and in an appropriate form for participants to have adequate time to consider their contents before matters which they raise are discussed at a meeting of CCAMLR.

All papers should relate to specific agenda items and clearly address issues of relevance to CCAMLR.

Papers should be submitted in Word and pdf format using the online document submission facility provided for each meeting by the appropriate deadline. Detailed instructions are available from the support forum article 'How to submit a meeting document'.

In order to be considered, papers must be submitted to the Secretariat by 0900 AEST either 14, 30 or 45 days prior to the start of meetings, depending on the meeting and paper category, as specified below:

• Scientific Committee working group papers – 14 days
• Commission and Scientific Committee background papers – 30 days
• Commission and Scientific Committee working papers – 45 days.

Papers – especially working group papers – submitted after the deadline and before the start of the meeting may be accepted, subject to prior notification and at the discretion of the relevant Convener/Chair. Papers submitted after the start of the meeting will only be accepted if the Convener/Chair of the meeting considers that they would make a significant contribution to the conduct of the meeting and/or would impact on the decision of the Commission and that participants will have enough time to give them adequate consideration before the relevant agenda item is discussed. In the case of working papers for the Commission and the Scientific Committee, translation will depend on the prioritisation of all translation work during the meeting, as determined by the Executive Secretary.

Background papers submitted by Members during a meeting in response to specific requests from the Convener/Chair must be submitted in Word and pdf format using the online document submission facility.

All papers will become visible on the CCAMLR website once they have been processed by the Secretariat.

Document nomenclature

A paper is allocated a number by the Secretariat prior to its being made visible on the CCAMLR website. In 2019, the numbering of meeting documents will change in accordance with CCAMLR-XXXVII/15. For Scientific Committee working group papers this number will indicate the working group, the year and the sequential number of the document. e.g. WG-EMM-2019/02. For working papers for the Scientific Committee and Commission, the paper number will indicate the meeting to which the paper is submitted and the sequential number, e.g. SC-CAMLR-38/05; CCAMLR-38/06. Background papers are identified by the insertion of BG before the final number, e.g. SC-CAMLR-38/BG/05; CCAMLR-38/BG/06. Meetings and papers prior to 2019 will retain their numbering system using roman numerals.

Categories

Working papers

Papers submitted to the Commission and/or Scientific Committee that contain proposals, conclusions and recommendations intended to lead directly to decisions should be submitted as working papers. Working papers are translated into the four languages of the Commission.

Background papers

Papers submitted to the Commission and/or Scientific Committee that provide supplementary/background information and do not require a decision should be submitted as background papers. Background papers are normally provided to the meeting in the language in which they are submitted, although translation of background papers may be undertaken at the discretion of the Executive Secretary, depending on other translation priorities.

Papers submitted to the Commission and/or Scientific Committee by Observers (including Contracting Parties that are not Members of the Commission) are categorised as background papers.

Working group papers

Papers submitted to working groups should be submitted as working group papers. These papers will be presented in the language of submission and will not be translated. Submission in English is recommended.

Size limits

Commission working papers must be less than 1 500 words, although there is no word limit on proposals for new or revised conservation measures, decisions or resolutions annexed to working papers. Commission working papers which exceed 1 500 words (not including annexes) will be returned to the author(s) for review and resubmission within the stated deadlines. Working papers may be accompanied by a background paper containing supporting/supplementary material.

There is no word limit for other papers, although Scientific Committee working papers should not exceed 5 pages (A4, font size 12, single spacing) and background papers (for the Commission and the Scientific Committee) should not exceed 15 pages.

Submission procedure

Papers can be submitted by any authenticated user. An approval process is required to endorse a submission before it can be posted on the CCAMLR website. Three contact lists exist to allow Party Administrators control over who receives notifications and is authorised to approve documents. These lists are:

• the Meeting Document Approver list
• the Commission Meeting Document Approver list, and
• the Scientific Committee Meeting Document Approver list.

Where a specific approver has not been specified, the notification will be sent to the respective Commission Main Contact or Scientific Committee Representative. They are required to endorse the submission before it can be posted on the CCAMLR website.

Cover/Title pages

The online submission process auto-generates a cover page.

Publication in CCAMLR Science

If a working group paper is also to be considered for publication in CCAMLR Science, this should be indicated in the appropriate field during submission. By indicating that the paper is to be considered for publication in CCAMLR Science, the authors have agreed that the paper can be considered by the Editorial Board of the journal and that, if the paper is accepted for peer review, it is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that permission to publish data and cite unpublished working group papers has been received.

Revisions

Factual corrections to papers will be accepted at any time. When corrections are made after the paper has been made visible on the CCAMLR website, the author(s) must clearly indicate the changes in the revised paper(s) using ‘track-changes’ in Word. Please use the field ‘Additional Information for the Secretariat’ to alert the Secretariat to revisions of papers. Provide the existing document number as allocated by the Secretariat. Revisions of all papers (working group, background and working papers) need to be submitted in Word and pdf format. Detailed instructions are available from the support forum article ‘Revising your paper (video)’.

Where revisions are more substantive the Convener/Chair may request that the paper be considered as a new submission.

Copyright

The issue of copyright relating to published papers submitted to CCAMLR meetings rests with the Member responsible for the submission. Papers that are ‘in press’ at the time of the meeting should be considered as published documents with respect to copyright.