For each name written in a non-roman alphabet there should be only one internationally accepted way of writing in roman letters.

A solution that has been offered and is advocated by the United Nations is contained in the resolution of the first United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (1967, res. 9): one of the aims of international Standardization is

"to arrive at an agreement on a single romanization system, based on scientific principles, from each non-Roman alphabet or script, for international application".

This is known as the single romanization principle. In other words, for each name written in a non-Roman alphabet there should be only one internationally accepted way of writing in Roman letters. In the case of the Russian example above, this accepted spelling would be Šahty, according to a recommentation* adopted in 1987. In the case of the Arab example above, the UN prefers the system it approved itself, that is the amended Beirut system**.