SATYA N. NANDAN, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY
Press Release
BIO/3284
SEA/1669
SATYA N. NANDAN, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY
20000403 Biographical Note(Received from International Seabed Authority.)
KINGSTON, 31 March -- Satya N. Nandan, who was elected today by the Council of the International Seabed Authority for re-election to a second four-year term as Secretary-General, was elected in March 1996 as the first Secretary-General of the Authority.
Before joining the Authority, Mr. Nandan was Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Fiji. He was a representative of his country at the United Nations (1970-1976 and 1993-1995) and was Fiji's Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands (1976-1980).
Mr. Nandan has had a long association with law of the sea matters in United Nations bodies, dating back well before work began on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. He headed the Fiji delegation to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of the Seabed and the Ocean Floor beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction (1970-1973) and to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (1973-1982).
At the Law of the Sea Conference, in 1975 he chaired working groups on the exclusive economic zone, delimitation of maritime boundaries and the high seas. In 1977 he was appointed Chairman of Negotiating Group 4, on participation by landlocked and geographically disadvantaged States in the exploitation of the living resources of neighbouring exclusive economic zones. He also chaired an informal group on deep-sea mining production policy and co-chaired another group that negotiated the compromise on passage through straits used for international navigation. As Rapporteur of the Second Committee of the Conference, he composed the single negotiating text on which subsequent negotiations in the Committee were based, for inclusion in the Convention. He was Chairman of the Group of 77 developing States in 1978 and 1979.
Following adoption of the Convention by the Conference he became an Under- Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Representative of the Secretary- General for the Law of the Sea from 1983 to 1992. In that position he headed the United Nations Office for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, and was in charge of the secretariat of the Preparatory Commission for the International Seabed Authority and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
After leaving the United Nations Secretariat, Mr. Nandan was President of the United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (1993-1995) and President of the annual meetings of States Parties to the
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Law of the Sea Convention (1994-1996). As representative of Fiji, he chaired the informal group that negotiated the text of the 1994 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI (seabed provisions) of the Convention, which opened the door for universal participation in the Convention.
Author of numerous published works on the law of the sea, he currently serves as a general editor of the Law of the Sea Commentary Project, consisting of six volumes published to date by the University of Virginia Center for Oceans Law and Policy.
Born in Suva, Fiji, on 10 July 1936, Mr. Nandan holds a law degree from the University of London and is a Barrister-at-Law of Lincolns Inn, England. He is also a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Fiji. He was awarded an LL.D. (honoris causa) by the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, (1995) and a Doctorate (honoris causa) by the University of the South Pacific (1996). He received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1978 and was awarded Fijis highest honour, Companion of the Order of Fiji (C.F.), in 1997. The President of Germany presented him in 1996 with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Ambassador Nandan is married and has a son.
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