At its first session, the Conference of the Parties (COP) agreed to “begin a process to enable it to take appropriate action for the period beyond 2000, including the strengthening of the commitments of the Parties included in Annex I to the convention (Annex I Parties) in Article 4, paragraph 2(a) and (b), through the adoption of a protocol or another legal instrument” (decision 1/CP.1, the “Berlin Mandate”). The COP decided that this process should be conducted in an open-ended ad hoc group of Parties, the “Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate” (AGBM), “with a view to adopting the
results at the third session of the Conference of the Parties” (decision 1/CP.1, para. 6). The results of the work of the AGBM on a protocol or another legal instrument, as approved by the AGBM at the first part of its eighth session (see FCCC/AGBM/1997/8,para. 17), are contained in this note