PROTOCOL ON PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OPENED FOR SIGNATURE AT SEABED AUTHORITY SESSION
Press Release
SEA/1602
PROTOCOL ON PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OPENED FOR SIGNATURE AT SEABED AUTHORITY SESSION
19980827 (Reissued as received.)KINGSTON, 26 August (International Seabed Authority) -- A formal treaty signing ceremony was held at the Jamaica Conference Centre today when the first signatures were recorded approving the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Seabed Authority. The signing ceremony was held in Conference Room 1 of the Conference Centre, where the Authority is holding its resumed fourth session. The Protocol, which was adopted by the Assembly of the Authority on 26 March, will be open for signature at Kingston until 28 August and subsequently, until 16 August 2000, at United Nations Headquarters in New York. It will enter into force 30 days after the tenth instrument of ratification or accession. The Protocol is based substantially on the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. It covers such matters as the legal personality of the Authority, inviolability of Authority premises, financial facilities of the Authority, privileges and immunities of representatives of members of the Authority and Authority officials, and related matters. Signatures of Five States Countries signing the Protocol during the ceremony today included Bahamas, Indonesia, Jamaica, Netherlands, and Trinidad and Tobago. Signing were: George Stewart, Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Bahamas; Prof. Dr. Hasjim Djalal, Ambassador at Large for the Law of the Sea and Marine Affairs of Indonesia; Dr. Kenneth Rattray, Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the International Seabed Authority; Dr. Liesbeth Lijnzaad, Legal Counselor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands; and Mrs. Pearl Wilson, High Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago in Jamaica, and Ambassador to Cuba and Suriname. The signing ceremony was supervised by Palitha Kohona, Chief of the Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, on behalf of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Present also were the President of the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority, Tadeusz Bachleda-Curus (Poland); Secretary-General Satya N. Nandan; and delegates to the International Seabed Authority's session currently under way in Kingston. * *** *