A/HRC/36/18 I. Introduction 1. The Human Rights Council, in its resolution 31/1, requested the High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit a comprehensive and updated report to the Council at its thirtysixth session, with a special focus on further measures taken to correct the imbalance in the geographical composition of the staff of the Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR). In resolution 28/1, the Council had requested the High Commissioner to submit such a report at its thirty-third session. That report on the composition of the staff of OHCHR presented data for 2015 (A/HRC/33/18), but the High Commissioner also explained that with most staff now falling under the new staff selection and managed mobility system (see ST/AI/20016/1), there would be no separate measures taken by or for OHCHR on which to report. As the resolution asking for the current report was passed before the previous report was issued, the High Commissioner, while still presenting the current report, is unable to expand on measures related to the geographical composition of his Office. 2. Chapter II of the present report includes data on staff members on regular budget posts subject to geographical distribution and data on staff in temporary posts funded from general temporary assistance and extrabudgetary resources, or on technical cooperation project posts, neither of which are included in the definition of posts subject to geographical distribution. 3. Chapter III contains a description of the measures for improvement taken by the High Commissioner, bearing in mind the issues identified by the Human Rights Council in resolution 31/1, while fully observing United Nations Secretariat human resources policies, in particular, its recruitment and contractual policies. II. Composition of the staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 4. The recruitment of staff members to posts subject to geographical distribution is governed by the system of desirable ranges at the Secretariat level. For that purpose, Member States are grouped into four categories: unrepresented, underrepresented, within range and overrepresented. A Member State is considered unrepresented when none of its nationals, throughout the entire Secretariat, is serving in a post subject to geographical distribution and filled in accordance with the established selection process. It is underrepresented when the number of its nationals appointed to such posts throughout the entire Secretariat is below the lower limit of the desirable range. It is within range when the number of its nationals appointed to such posts is between the upper and lower limits of the desirable range and it is overrepresented when the number of its nationals appointed to such posts within the entire Secretariat exceeds the upper limit of the desirable range. The representation status of Member States is affected by many factors, in particular the turnover of staff and changes in the scale of assessments. 5. The official report on the composition of the Secretariat is submitted annually by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly in accordance with a number of resolutions, the most recent being Assembly resolutions 59/266, 60/238, 61/244, 63/250, 65/247, 66/234, 67/255, 68/252 and 71/263. 6. The most recent report of the Secretary-General on the composition of the Secretariat (A/71/360) covers the period from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016. OHCHR is part of the Secretariat and the breakdown of its geographical composition has to be seen against the breakdown of the overall distribution within the Secretariat. 2