A/HRC/9/18 page 3 Introduction 1. The Human Rights Council, in its resolution 8/1 of 18 June 2008, requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Conference Services Division (now the Division of Conference Management) at the United Nations Office at Geneva to assess the situation concerning delays in submission of documents to the Council, including those relating to the universal periodic review, and in particular the delays in the translation of documents into the six official languages of the United Nations, and to report back to the Council at its ninth session with proposals for adequate measures to address these problems. The Office of the High Commissioner and the Division of Conference Management have jointly reviewed the situation and the factors contributing to the issue. The first chapter of the present report reflects the conclusions regarding requirements to adequately support the meetings and mechanisms of the Human Rights Council. 2. In the same resolution, the Council requested the Department of Public Information to make an assessment of the situation pursuant to the Council’s affirmation that it would consider favourably the adoption of a decision on the webcasting of all public proceedings of its various working groups, taking into account the principles of transparency, equal treatment and non-selectivity and to report back to the Council at its ninth session with proposals for adequate measures, including the necessary resources to establish a permanent capacity for webcasting. Chapter II of this report presents the assessment of the Department of Public Information on the overall requirements for its services in respect of the Council and its machinery, including press and all media coverage. I. CONFERENCE SERVICING A. Background 3. With the establishment of the Human Rights Council, the pattern of conferences at the United Nations Office at Geneva became extremely dynamic and demanding in terms of services. The many activities of the Council and its mechanisms make advance planning of meetings difficult and they severely complicate the even distribution over the year of the overall conference workload. Furthermore, several new human rights mandates have been approved by the General Assembly, generating an additional workload for both meetings servicing and document processing. A summary of the new activities of the Human Rights Council machinery is included in annex I. B. Human Rights Council activities 4. In addition to the 10 weeks of meetings that the Human Rights Council held pursuant to General Assembly resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006, the Council can hold, as summarized in the non-paper of the Facilitator on the Council’s methods of work and rules of procedure (A/HRC/4/122), the following activities: • Open-ended organizational meetings at the beginning of each Council year to consider the agenda, set the annual programme of work and other procedural issues