COMMISSION ON LIMITS OF CONTINENTAL SHELF AGREES ON RECOMMENDATIONS TO RUSSIAN FEDERATION

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COMMISSION ON LIMITS OF CONTINENTAL SHELF AGREES

ON RECOMMENDATIONS TO RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Recommendations Follow Russian Submission

On Proposed Outer Limits of Its Continental Shelf

NEW YORK, 28 June (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) –- The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf agreed by consensus on the recommendations to the Russian Federation regarding the outer edge of its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.  The recommendations were transmitted to the Russian Federation and to the Secretary-General of the United Nations by Peter F. Croker, newly elected Chairman of the Commission.

The decision on the recommendations ended a week-long session that began on Monday, 24 June, with a swearing-in ceremony for the 21 newly-elected members of the Commission, during which they took a solemn oath of office.  They were elected to a five-year term at the Twelfth Meeting of States parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which took place in April 2002.  Ralph Zacklin, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy to the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel also welcomed the newly-elected members and chaired the eleventh session until the election of the Chairman of the Commission.

Mr. Croker (Ireland) was elected the new Chairman of the Commission.  That election was followed by that of three Vice-Presidents and a Rapporteur, each of whom was nominated by one of the regional groups of the members of the Commission.  Osvaldo Pedro Astiz, Lawrence Folajimi Awosika and Mladen Juračić were elected as Vice-Presidents, and Yong-Ahn Park as the Rapporteur.  All these officers were elected to a term of two and a half years.

Elections were also held to renew the composition of two of the standing subsidiary bodies of the Commission.  Upon nominations from the regional groups, Osvaldo Pedro Astiz, Samuel Sona Betah, Harald Brekke, Noel Newton St. Claver Francis, Abu Bakar Jaafar, and Yuri Borisovitch Kazmin were appointed to the Committee on Confidentiality.  Mr. Jaafar was elected Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Brekke Vice-Chairman and Mr. Astiz Rapporteur.

Mr. Astiz, Mr. Awosika, Mihai Silviu German, Kensaku Tamaki, and Philip Alexander Symonds were elected as members of the Standing Committee on provision of scientific and technical advice to coastal States.  Mr. Symonds was elected Chairman, Mr. Tamaki Vice-Chairman and Mr. Awosika Rapporteur.

Besides appointing the members of these two Committees, the Chairmen of two standing open-ended Committees were also elected:  Mr. Brekke as Chairman of the Editorial Committee, and Indurlall Fagoonee the Chairman of the Training Committee.

Following the elections, the Commission continued its consideration of the scientific data and other material included in the submission by the Russian Federation regarding the outer limits of its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.  The submission contained data and information on the proposed outer limits of the extended continental shelf of the Russian Federation, and was made pursuant to article 76, paragraph 8, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982, which came into force on 16 November 1994.  The areas in which the outer limits were proposed by the Russian Federation were in the Barents Sea, the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Arctic Ocean.

The Commission has made its recommendations to the Russian Federation on the proposed outer limits of its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.  Should the coastal State disagree with the recommendations of the Commission, the Convention provides for it to make a revised or new submission to the Commission within a reasonable time.  When the outer limits of the shelf are established by a coastal State on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission, those limits will be final and binding -– they must be deposited with the Secretary-General and given due publicity.

The submission of the Russian Federation, made on 20 December 2002, is the first submission by a coastal State to the Commission to establish the outer limits of a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured (referred to as the extended continental shelf).  At the tenth session in March 2002, experts of the delegation of the Russian Federation, headed by Dr. Ivan Glumov, Deputy Minister for Natural Resources, made a presentation to the plenary of the Commission.  The Commission then elected a subcommission of seven members, in accordance with its rules of procedure, to prepare recommendations for the Commission for action to be taken regarding the recommendations to the submitting State.  The subcommission began its examination of the submission at that session.  In response to requests by the subcommission for clarification and additional data and information, new material was submitted on 3 April and on 15 May 2002 by the Russian Federation.  The subcommission reconvened from 10 to 14 June 2002, completed its recommendations and forwarded them to the newly-elected Commission through the Secretariat.

After a series of deliberations and informal consultations, the Commission concluded its examination of the recommendations prepared by the subcommission, made several amendments to it and adopted the recommendations of the Commission by consensus.  In conformity with the provisions of the Convention, the recommendations of the Commission were submitted in writing to the Russian Federation, the coastal State that made the submission, and to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

As a result of the adoption of the recommendations, the one-week session originally scheduled to take place from 26 to 30 August 2002 to allow the

Commission to continue its consideration of the recommendations, if it proved necessary, has been cancelled.  The next session of the Commission is now scheduled to take place from 28 April to 2 May 2003.

The determination of the outer limits of the continental shelf of States is necessary to separate those areas that fall under national jurisdiction from those areas of the seabed which were proclaimed by the General Assembly, and later the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to be the common heritage of mankind.  The resources of the deep seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction are to be managed jointly by all States through the International Seabed Authority, a body also established by the Convention.

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