Secretary-General's Bulletins

In an ongoing initiative the Dag Hammarskjöld Library’s Digitization Unit has scanned over 160 memorable Secretary General’s Bulletins, including UN staff rules, from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. These historical UN documents contain milestone communications including bulletins addressed to the “Members of the Staff of United Nations” by Secretaries-General Trygve Lie and Dag Hammarskjöld.   

Since many of the staff rules have numerous amendments one can follow the path of refining for each rule, and the evolution of the Organization’s human resource topics throughout the decades.  

The bulletins provide a rare historical perspective into human resource related communications during the early years of the United Nations. They address various UN staff matters, for example, SGB/1 issued by the first UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie established the “New York Headquarters and the temporary London office” in 1946.  SGB/63 describes the “Functions of United Nations Archives” and  ST/SGB/124 gives a detailed account of the ‘Revised Organization of the Secretariat’ from 1961. Other communications such as SGB/69 detail overtime practices, and the establishment of an Appeals Board (SGB/64).   

These historic Secretary-General’s Bulletins and Staff Rules and Regulations can be found in the Library’s own digital portal, the UN Digital Library. All Secretary General Bulletin documents begin with symbol SGB/ or ST/SGB, and can be found via the advanced search in the database.    

Explore related FAQs on UN Rules and Regulations in our AskDag service.  The UN Digital Library is freely accessible worldwide.

Other digitized series include:

• General Assembly: Annotated agenda list (1946-1971)
• Charter of the United Nations (39 languages)
• United Nations Conference on International Organization documents (San Francisco Conference, 22 volumes)
• United Nations Blue Book Series (1994-1996)
• Report of the Commission on the Status of Women (1947-1992)
• Report of UNICEF Executive Board (1946-1993)
• Report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (1966-1993)
• UN Statistical Yearbooks  (1948-2017)