Staff working at the PTS are recruited from a broad geographical representation with a view to ensuring the highest standards of professional expertise, experience, efficiency, competency and integrity. Increasingly, the PTS has begun to seek a higher representation of qualified women. This aim reflects a number of decisions made by the Commission starting in April 1998 and including decisions made at the Commission’s 22nd, 23rd and 24th sessions.  

The PTS is committed to ensuring a wide and well-balanced geographical distribution of posts as mandated by Article II, paragraph 50, of the Treaty, especially for candidates from Member States that are under-represented or altogether unrepresented at the PTS.

A few hindrances that have been encountered in implementing this goal arise with respect to recruiting in technical and scientific areas. In order to counter this, the PTS has begun to send out vacancy announcements and hold interviews via video conference. This allows for a wider outreach to identify qualified candidates where distance and extensive travel would otherwise be an issue.

The PTS has also—in collaboration with scientific and technical institutions, as well as with the UN and other international agencies present in these places—more widely disseminated information on vacancy notices. Lastly, donor countries now offer the possibility to finance the expenses of qualified candidates, especially those from developing countries, for a Junior Professional Officers (JPO) programme.