COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY ELECTS THREE MEMBERS OF LEGAL AND TECHNICAL COMMISSION
Press Release
SEA/1593
COUNCIL OF INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY ELECTS THREE MEMBERS OF LEGAL AND TECHNICAL COMMISSION
19980819 Informal Discussion Begins on Mining Code Regulations(Reissued as received.)
KINGSTON, 18 August (International Seabed Authority) -- The Council of the International Seabed Authority, meeting this morning in Kingston, elected three new members to fill vacancies on the Legal and Technical Commission. The new members are Pierre Athomo-Ndong (Gabon), Helmut Beiersdorf (Germany) and Yuji Kajitani (Japan).
Pierre Athomo-Ndong heads the Treaties Division of the Ministry of Commerce and Cooperation of Gabon. He has pursued a doctorate degree in international law and has worked for several years with Gabon's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Helmut Beiersdorf is head of the section for marine and polar research, deep sea exploration at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Hanover, Germany. He currently lectures in marine geology at the University of Hanover and his work includes several publications on manganese nodules and marine mineral resources.
Yuji Kajitani has worked with the Metal Mining Agency of Japan for the past 30 years and is now the Director of mine pollution control and technical development at that Agency. He has written extensively on the environmental impact of deep sea mining.
The new members will serve on the Legal and Technical Commission until 31 December 2001. They were elected to replace three members who have resigned: Hans Amann (Germany), Marcellin Mve-Ebang (Gabon) and Toshio Sakasegawa (Japan).
The Council moved into an informal session to allow all members of the Assembly to participate in the deliberations on the draft mining code, which will regulate the search for polymetallic nodules in the international area of the deep seabed. The new draft was submitted to the Council by the Legal and Technical Commission during the first part of this session in March. The 33 regulations proposed in the document define how the Authority will oversee
prospecting and exploration by private and public contractors interested in recovering mineral-rich lumps containing manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper from ocean bottoms beyond any nation's jurisdiction.
In today's two informal meetings, delegates discussed regulations 2, 3 and 4.
A number of representatives spoke of the need for a revision of Regulation 2 on "Prospecting" to include provisions for the protection of the marine environment and to clarify the expression "reasonable quantity" in paragraph 3, regarding the amount of minerals which a prospector may recover for testing.
Delegates pointed out that there is no specific reference to protection of the environment in any of the five paragraphs contained in Regulation 2. Council President Joachim Koch (Germany) said he sensed the view of delegates that prospecting must be in accordance with the provisions on the protection of the environment.
In the afternoon session, discussion on Regulation 3, which deals with Notification of Prospecting, focused on the interpretation of the words "protection" and "preservation" as they relate to actions of prospectors. Specifically, members deliberated over whether both words should be included in the provision in paragraph 4 that the proposed prospector will comply with the Convention and the relevant rules, regulations and procedures of the Authority concerning "protection of the marine environment". The President of the Council said the language of the paragraph could be revised to the satisfaction of all parties.
During deliberation on Regulation 4 -- "Consideration of notification" -- the issue of confidentiality was raised in connection with a provision stating that the Secretary-General shall "from time to time inform all members of the Authority, without reference to a particular prospector, of the areas in which prospecting is being conducted". Some delegates questioned the need to conceal the identity of prospectors.
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