Astraftis:
Can I ask some enlightenment about the amendments? I'm a little bit confused about how they work and who can make a proposal about what.
Any committee members can submit amendments to the draft decisions (ie the decision paper that was circulated before the Conference). Other state parties cannot. These draft decisions cover everything that is discussed at the conference - states of conservations, new inscriptions, acceptance of other reports, budget - and are based on the recommendations by the advisory bodies. The amendments are debated by the committee when that decision is discussed. Sometimes they wrangle a bit about the wording (Norway is the "bad guy" this year, at least with regards to the states of conservation discussions, wanting to side with the advisory bodies and the original decision proposal, while most other countries want to water down the decisions).Committee members cannot vote on or amend decisions that concern themselves, so they usually get another committee member to amend on their behalf. Since other states cannot amend either, they too look for a friendly state. Eg Uganda and Ethiopia (if I remember correctly) pushed the amendment to have DR Congo's Salonga reserve removed from the list in danger.