SEABED COUNCIL ELECTS 24-MEMBER LEGAL, TECHNICAL COMMISSION

SEABED COUNCIL ELECTS 24-MEMBER LEGAL, TECHNICAL COMMISSION

(Received from the International Seabed Authority.)

KINGSTON, 5 July -- The Council of the International Seabed Authority decided this morning to expand the membership of its Legal and Technical Commission to 24 for the next five years, without prejudice to its composition in future elections.  It then decided by acclamation to elect all 24 candidates whose names had been submitted for the Commission by the deadline of 6 p.m. yesterday,

4 July.  They will serve from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2006.

The Commission has consisted of 23 members since 1999.  At the first election in 1996, there were 15 members, the number specified in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.  However, the Council increased the number to 22 in 1996, in line with a clause in the Convention empowering it to add members “if necessary”.

The membership of the Commission will, therefore, be as follows (an asterisk denotes a re-elected member):

Ferry Adamhar (Indonesia), Sami Ahmad Addam (Lebanon), Shahid Amjad (Pakistan), *Frida María Armas Pfirter (Argentina), *Helmut Beiersdorf (Germany), *Samuel Sona Betah (Cameroon), *Arne Bjørlykke (Norway), Galo Carrera Hurtado (Mexico), *Walter de Sá Leitão (Brazil), Miguel dos Santos Alberto Chissano (Mozambique), Baïdy Diène (Senegal), *Ivan F. Glumov (Russian Federation), *Mohammed M. Gomaa (Egypt), Albert Hoffmann (South Africa), *Yuji Kajitani (Japan), *Jung-Keuk Kang (Republic of Korea), *Jean-Pierre Lenoble (France), *Li Yuwei (China), Lindsay M. Parson (United Kingdom), M. Ravindran (India), *Giovanni Rosa (Italy), *Alfred T. Simpson (Fiji), Rodrigo Miguel Urquiza Caroca (Chile) and *Inge K. Zaamwani (Namibia).

Members leaving the Commission at the end of their current term are:

Syamal Kanti Das (India), Robert Guéhi (Côte d’Ivoire), Ryszard Kotlinski (Poland), Charles L. Morgan (United States), Pierre A. Ndong (Gabon), Luis Giotto Preval Paez (Cuba), Olexander A. Schiptsov (Ukraine), George P. Stewart (Bahamas) and Boris Winterhalter (Finland).

The Legal and Technical Commission, as an organ of the Council, has broad authority to oversee seabed activities.  It makes recommendations to the Council on the work plans of seabed contractors, on protection of the marine environment and on the establishment of a pollution-monitoring programme.  It is also

empowered to supervise seabed activities, formulate and review regulations and procedures for such activities, and assess environmental implications.

Commission members are nominated by States, but serve as experts rather than national representatives.  They are required by the Law of the Sea Convention to “have appropriate qualifications such as those relevant to exploration for and exploitation and processing of mineral resources, oceanology, protection of the marine environment, or economic or legal matters relating to ocean mining and related fields of expertise”.  They may serve for up to two consecutive five-year terms.

The Council approved a statement by Secretary-General Satya N. Nandan that the understanding was that the term-limit clause would not bar Ms. Armas Pfirter (Argentina), who was elected to the Commission in 1999, from seeking a further five-year term at the next election.

The Council took four further decisions relating to the Commission’s membership today:

-- The five-year term should begin on 1 January following the election.  This modifies a provision in the Council’s rules of procedure stating that terms are to begin on the day of election.

-- The Secretary-General should study all means of facilitating the participation of members from developing countries in the Commission’s work and report to the Council next year.

-- In line with a previous decision that the Secretary-General should send a reminder letter to members who had not attended two consecutive sessions, the Council, if no explanation was received, would deem that the membership had been forfeited.

-- For future elections, the names and curricula vitae of candidates should be submitted to the Secretary-General for circulation not later than two months before the beginning of the session at which the election would take place.

The Council advanced today’s election, originally scheduled for tomorrow,

6 July, after all regional groups agreed to a proposal by Acting President Hasjim Djalal (Indonesia) that all 24 candidates should be accepted.  Spokespersons for the African and the Latin American and Caribbean groups voiced the reservation that they were not satisfied with the geographical balance of the new membership.

Papua New Guinea suggested that the secretariat be asked to prepare a paper on the questions of equitable geographical distribution and the representation of special interest groups.  It felt that objective criteria were needed as a guide for future nominations.  Secretary-General Nandan noted the difficulty that the United Nations and others had with the issues of equitability and representation in various bodies.

The Council took no action on the suggestion for a secretariat report. 

Attendance and Subsidies

      The issue of helping members from developing countries attend Commission meetings was raised this morning by the Papua New Guinea representative.  Voicing concern about the ability of developing States far from Kingston to finance participation by their nationals, he proposed that the secretariat prepare a paper on the possibility of subsidizing airfares for those members.  His proposal was supported by Australia and Egypt, which cited the poor attendance of developing country members as evidence of a need to find ways to assist them at an early stage of the next term.

Secretary-General Nandan commented that the problem of attendance at the Commission’s meetings was widely acknowledged.  However, it was up to member States to decide where any money should come from, whether a voluntary fund, drawing on interest accrued on contributions from pioneer investors, or otherwise.

The Russian Federation objected to the idea of using funds accruing from pioneer investors’ contributions when they registered as potential contractors.  There were provisions, he observed, whereby any surplus held by the Authority in respect of pioneer investor funds should be reimbursed to the applicant.

The United Kingdom endorsed a point made earlier by Argentina that members nominating someone for the Commission must take on the responsibility of facilitating the attendance of their candidates.  It agreed with the Russian Federation that any fund must be a voluntary one.  The United States observer reminded the Council of the role of the Finance Committee concerning all financial matters brought before the Authority.

To ensure that important matters were discussed and decided by the fullest possible membership of the Commission, Papua New Guinea proposed that the Council take action against members who failed to attend three consecutive sessions.  Egypt suggested a letter be sent to any member absent for two consecutive meetings, requesting that member’s resignation.  Germany remarked that members were elected for a five-year term and could not be dismissed before the term ended.  The Secretary-General recalled that the Council had previously decided that he should write to delinquent members who had missed two consecutive sessions, and that such letters had resulted in one resignation and two failures to respond.

In light of Mr. Nandan’s explanation, Papua New Guinea suggested that if a delinquent member failed to respond to the reminder letter, the Council should regard the member as having forfeited membership. 

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