FIRST TRAINING COURSE IN BRAZIL FOR DELINEATION OF OUTER LIMITS OF CONTINENTAL SHELF BEYOND 200 NAUTICAL MILES, RIO DE JANEIRO, 3 TO 8 MARCH

FIRST TRAINING COURSE IN BRAZIL FOR DELINEATION OF OUTER LIMITS OF CONTINENTAL

SHELF BEYOND 200 NAUTICAL MILES, RIO DE JANEIRO, 3 TO 8 MARCH

Between 3 and 8 March 2002, in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Government hosted a five-day training course on the delineation of the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.

It was developed pursuant to General Assembly resolution 55/7 of 30 October 2000, which encourages the setting up of training courses designed to enable interested coastal States to prepare submissions to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) with a view to benefiting from the possibility of extending their continental shelf beyond the present 200-mile limit.  It is generally understood that vast non-living marine resources occur on and beneath the deep seabed of oceans, including much of the known reserves of oil and natural gas.

The course was designed in accordance with criteria developed for this purpose by the CLCS and is the outcome of the technical expertise and practical experience acquired by Brazil in preparing its own submission.  This initiative was coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, under the sponsorship of the Brazilian Inter-ministerial Commission on Sea Resources (CIRM) and with the support of the Directorate of Hydrography and Navigation (the Brazilian Hydrographic Office) and PETROBRÁS (the Brazilian State oil company).  Cooperation was also received from the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS) of the United Nations, which supplied the relevant United Nations documents used by the trainees.  The keynote address, which consisted of a general presentation on developments in and the implementation of the Law of the Sea, was given by a member of the Division.

Thirty representatives from 24 countries (Angola, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Gabon, Guyana, Guinea Bissau, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela) attended the course.  The background of the trainees was quite varied, ranging from scientists to legal advisers and diplomats.  The course centred on the principal and practical challenges involved in preparing a submission.  These included relevant aspects of the geological and ocean sciences, as well as requirements to carry out the collection and analysis of large amounts of bathymetric, seismic and geophysical data.

This course was held in the wake of the decision taken by the States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Convention) at its eleventh Meeting, in 2001, to set a new commencement date from which to count the

10-year deadline for making a submission to the CLCS of the outer limits of the continental shelf for those States for which the Convention had come into force before important documents of the CLCS had been completed, that is, before 13 May 1999.  This gave much-needed additional time for developing coastal States, among the first to sign and ratify the Convention, to undertake the steps necessary to prepare and substantiate the data and material necessary to the success of their submission to the CLCS.

This initiative to offer a training course to assist coastal States in preparing a submission to the CLCS was conceived with the goal of heightening awareness, especially among developing countries, concerning the importance of extending, where possible, their continental shelf.  More generally, it sought to explore the possibilities for regional cooperation in dealing with issues of capacity building and transfer of technology in the field of ocean sciences and the achievement of sustainable development of marine resources.

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