COMMISSION ON LIMITS OF CONTINENTAL SHELF HOLDING SEVENTEENTH SESSION FROM 20 MARCH TO 21 APRIL

Background Release

COMMISSION ON LIMITS OF CONTINENTAL SHELF HOLDING

SEVENTEENTH SESSION FROM 20 MARCH TO 21 APRIL

Plenary Meeting to Take Place, 3-7 April

NEW YORK, 29 March (DOALOS) -– The General Assembly at its sixtieth session approved the convening of the  seventeenth session of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf [hereafter:  “the Commission”] from 20 March to 21 April 2006 on the understanding that the periods 20-31 March 2006 and 10-21 April 2006 will be used for the technical examination of submissions at the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS).  Thus, the plenary meetings will be held from 3 to 7 April 2006.  At this session, the Commission will continue the examination of the submissions made by Brazil, Australia and Ireland.

The submissions to the Commission are made pursuant to article 76, paragraph 8, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 [hereafter:  “the Convention”], which provides that if a coastal State intends to establish the outer limits of its continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles, information on such limits “shall be submitted by the coastal State to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. ... The Commission shall make recommendations to coastal States on matters related to the establishment of the outer limits of their continental shelf.  The limits of the shelf established by a coastal State on the basis of these recommendations shall be final and binding”.

Article 4 of Annex II to the Convention establishes that a coastal State must make its submission “as soon as possible but in any case within 10 years of the entry into force of this Convention for that State”.  However, as a result of a decision taken by the Meeting of States Parties to the Convention, the commencement of this 10-year period was postponed for some countries, in order to take into consideration that it was only after the adoption by the Commission of its Scientific and Technical Guidelines [hereafter:  “the Guidelines”] on 13 May 1999 that States had before them the basic documents concerning the preparation of submissions.  The eleventh Meeting decided that: “in the case of a State Party for which the Convention entered into force before 13 May 1999, it is understood that the ten-year time period referred to in article 4 of Annex II to the Convention shall be taken to have commenced on 13 May 1999” (document SPLOS/72).

As provided by article 5 of Annex II to the Convention, “unless the Commission decides otherwise, the Commission shall function by way of subcommissions composed of seven members, appointed in a balanced manner taking into account the specific elements of each submission by a coastal State”.  All three submissions currently under examinations are being considered by subcommissions.  At the seventeenth session, the Commission will benefit from the recently upgraded premises of DOALOS which will enable all three subcommissions to work in state-of-the-art GIS laboratories for maximum efficiency.

The Commission will also deal with procedural and organizational issues.  In particular, the Commission will consider possible amendments to rule 52 of its Rules of Procedure, as well as methods to address the projected workload associated with the examination of a large number of submissions expected in the coming years.  For this purpose, the Commission will discuss practical proposals, to be conveyed to the sixteenth Meeting of States Parties (19-23 June 2006) by its Chairman, aimed at addressing the constraints on time and funding to allow members of the Commission, whose participation is financed by their Governments, to spend an increased amount of time in New York.

The Commission will also consider training issues.  The DOALOS, with the expert assistance of two members of the Commission acting in their personal capacities, has prepared a training manual to assist States in developing the knowledge and skills necessary to prepare a submission in conformity with the Guidelines developed by the Commission.  On the basis of this manual, three United Nations training courses for developing countries with potential for extended continental shelf were organized last year.  The first course was organized in cooperation with the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and the Commonwealth Secretariat, from 28 February to 4 March 2005, in Fiji, the second in cooperation with the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Government of Sri Lanka from 16 to 20 May 2005 in Sri Lanka, the third with the cooperation of the Government of Ghana and the Commonwealth Secretariat, and with the support of the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Ghana from 5 to 9 December 2005.  A fourth course will take place in collaboration with the Government of Argentina and with the support, among others, of the Commonwealth Secretariat, for the Latin American and Caribbean region from 8 to 12 May 2006 in Argentina.

For information on the history and purpose of the Commission, see Press Release SEA/1818 issued on 30 March 2005.  For additional information, please visit the Web site of the Commission at www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record