Round-Up Release

Commission on Limits of Continental Shelf Concludes Twenty-Fourth Session

NEW YORK, 15 September (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) -- Pursuant to the decision taken at its twenty-second session and on the basis of General Assembly resolution 63/111, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its resumed twenty-third and twenty-fourth sessions at United Nations Headquarters from 3 to 7 August and from 10 August to 11 September, respectively.  Apart from the work carried out in plenary meetings, the Commission also proceeded with a technical examination of submissions made by coastal States in accordance with article 76 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at the Geographic Information System (GIS) laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs.

At its twenty-fourth session, the Commission received presentations of 18 submissions from the following States: Suriname; Myanmar; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (in respect of Hatton Rockall Area); Ireland (in respect of Hatton-Rockall Area); Uruguay; the Philippines (in respect of the Benham Rise region); the Cook Islands (in respect of the Manihiki Plateau); Fiji; Argentina; Ghana; Denmark (in respect of the Faroe Islands); Malaysia and Viet Nam (in respect of the Southern part of the South China Sea); Kenya; Mauritius (in respect of Rodrigues Island); Viet Nam (in respect of North Area, VNM-N); Nigeria; Seychelles (in respect of the Northern Plateau Region); and Côte d’Ivoire.

The decisions of the Commission in relation to the submissions presented to it are reflected in the statement of the Commission Chairman, which will be issued as document CLCS/64.

The Commission also continued the examination of the submissions made by France, in respect of the areas of French Guiana and New Caledonia; Barbados; the United Kingdom, in respect of Ascension Island; and Indonesia, in respect of North West of Sumatra Island.  The subcommissions, which had been established at previous sessions to examine those submissions, continued the examination of the submissions and reported to the Commission on the work that they had carried out.  In particular, the subcommission established to consider the submission made by France submitted its recommendations to the Commission.  The Commission adopted those recommendations by consensus.

The Commission established a new subcommission to consider the submission made by Japan.  The newly established subcommission met during the twenty-fourth session, after the plenary meeting of the Commission as a whole.

The Commission decided that it would resume its twenty-fourth session from 2 to 6 November, and 7 to 11 December 2009.  The twenty-fifth session of the Commission will be held from 15 March to 23 April 2010, on the understanding that the periods from 5 to 16 April would be for plenary meetings and that the periods from 15 March to 1 April and from 19 to 23 April would be used for the technical examination of submissions at the GIS laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division.

For information on the history and purpose of the Commission, see earlier Press Release SEA/1818.  For additional information, please visit the Commission’s website at www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm.

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For information media • not an official record