At its seventeenth session, held in New York from March 30 through April 30, 1954, the Economic and Social Council elected Juan Cooke (Argentina), president and Sir Douglas Copland (Australia) and Jiri Nosek (Czechoslovakia) first and second vice-presidents respectively. The Council approved an agenda of 24 items; three items on the provisional agenda were deferred to the eighteenth session: the organization and operation of the Council and its commissions, the election of members of the Council Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, and the removal of obstacles to international trade and means of developing international economic relations.