The Netherlands issued a paper to the CD about a year ago titled “Back to Basics – the Programme of Work.” Annex I contains some history about which I was unaware:
The table in annex I of this paper provides an overview of the programmes of work adopted and stand-alone decisions on subsidiary bodies of the Conference. This clearly shows that in the first fifteen years of its existence, decisions on the (re-)establishment of subsidiary bodies and their mandates were taken separately from the decision on the programme of work, fully in line with the rules of procedure.
The whole annex is too long to post here, but take a look.