COMMISSION ON LIMITS OF CONTINENTAL SHELF CONCLUDES EIGHTEENTH SESSION

NEW YORK, 20 September 2006 (DOALOS) – The eighteenth session of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf [hereafter: the Commission] was held from 21 August to 15 September 2006.  Plenary meetings took place on 21 and 22 August and 6 to 8 September, and the periods from 23 August to 5 September and 11 to 15 September were used for the technical examination of submissions for the establishment of the outer limits of the continental shelf where it extends beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured at the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea (DOALOS) of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs.

At the eighteenth session, the Commission began the examination of the submission made by New Zealand and the partial joint submission made by France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom.  After the submissions made by the Russian Federation in 2001, Brazil and Australia in 2004 and Ireland in 2005, the submission of New Zealand and the partial joint submission by France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom are, respectively the fifth and sixth received by the Commission.  (See Press Release SEA/1874 of 16 August 2006.)

The two new submissions were presented at the first plenary period of the session, respectively by the delegation of New Zealand headed by Gerard van Bohemen and by the delegations of Ireland, France, Spain and the United Kingdom which were headed, respectively, by Elie Jarmache, Lisa Walshe, D. Sergio Carranza Forster and Lindsay Parson.

For both submissions, the Commission decided to proceed by way of subcommissions.  For the submission made by New Zealand, the Commission established a subcommission composed of: Alexandre Tagore Medeiros de Albuquerque, Harald Brekke, Peter F. Croker, Fernando Manuel Maia Pimentel, Kensaku Tamaki, Naresh Kumar Thakur and Yao Ubuènalè Woeledji.  The subcommission elected Mr. Brekke as Chairman and Mr. Albuquerque and Mr. Tamaki as Vice-Chairmen.  For the joint partial submission made by France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingrom, the subcommission established by the Commission is composed of Lawrence Folajimi Awosika, Noel Newton St. Claver Francis, Mihai Silviu German, Abu Bakar Jaafar, Yuri Borisovitch Kazmin, Wenzheng Lu, and Philip Alexander Symonds.

In view of the workload faced by the Commission, both new Subcommissions, after a preliminary examination of the two submissions, and a number of meetings with the respective delegations, decided to continue their work during resumed meetings of the eighteenth session.  These resumed meetings will be held in the premises of DOALOS from 13 to 17 November 2006 (New Zealand Subcommission), and from 22 January to 2 February 2007 ( France, Ireland, Spain and United Kingdom Subcommission).

At the eighteenth session, the Commission continued the examination of the submissions made by Brazil, Australia and Ireland.  The Subcommissions which had been established to examine those submissions reported to the Commission on the work that had been carried out intersessionaly and continued the examination of their submissions and met, respectively, with the delegations of Brazil and Australia.

During the session, the Subcommission established for consideration of the partial submission made by Ireland completed its work at the session, and presented its recommendations to the Commission.  The Commission decided to defer further consideration of the recommendations to the nineteenth session in order to allow all members of the Commission to study in more detail the conclusions reached by the Subcommission.

At the eighteenth session, the Commission also addressed the suggestions voiced at the sixteenth session of the Meeting of States Parties concerning its work.  In this connection, the Commission endorsed the view of the Meeting of States Parties that the technical capacity of DOALOS should be further strengthened in order to assist the Commission in dealing with the increased workload.

During the session, Vladimir Golitsyn, Director of DOALOS, provided the members of the Commission with an update concerning the activities carried out by DOALOS with regard to training courses for delineation of the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles and for the preparation of submission to the Commission and the Training Manual.

The Commission decided that two sessions would be held in 2007: the nineteenth session from 5 March to 13 April and the twentieth session from 20 August to 7 September, on the understanding that the technical examination of submissions would take place at the laboratories and other technical facilities of DOALOS prior to and following the plenary meetings of the Commission, which would be held from 26 March to 5 April and 27 to 31 August 2007 respectively.

For information on the history and purpose of the Commission, see earlier press release SEA/1818. For additional information, please visit the Web site of the Commission at www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm.

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For information media • not an official record