Meeting of States Parties

to Law of Sea Convention

139^th Meeting (AM)

Concluding 2010 Session, States Parties to Convention on Law of the Sea

 

Approve International Tribunal Budget, Pay Rise for Judges

 

Proposals on Managing Work of Commission on Limits of Continental Shelf Passed

States parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea concluded their twentieth Meeting this afternoon, approving the 2011-2012 budget for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, as well as salary increases for its judges, and recommendations on how the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf could better manage its burgeoning workload.

With the approved €20.4 million budget representing a €2.68 million increase over that for the previous biennium, the Meeting also approved €4.52 million for the Tribunal’s case-related costs, particularly case number 16, a maritime boundary dispute between Bangladesh and Myanmar over the Bay of Bengal, as well as cases requiring expeditious proceedings.  Furthermore, it decided that the €1.9 million surplus cash from the 2007-2008 financial period would be surrendered and deducted from States parties’ 2011 contributions, in accordance with financial regulation 4.

Following that action, the representative of the United Kingdom voiced deep concern about the substantial budget increase, noting that it came at a time when national public finances were “under serious pressure”.  In light of concerns about a lack of sufficient time to consider the budget, he proposed that States parties convene a finance subgroup.  The representatives of India and Japan supported that proposal, with Japan noting that it had no cost implications.

Namira Nabmil Negm (Egypt), Coordinator of the Open-ended Working Group of the Whole on Budgetary Matters of the Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, then announced that Indonesia had been nominated as a member of the Tribunal’s Staff Pension Committee, and different regional groups were holding consultations on the nomination of an alternate member.  The Secretariat would be notified of the outcome in due course.

By the terms of the draft decision on the Commission’s workload (document SPLOS/L.66), the Meeting requested that the Commission consider adopting, on an urgent and priority basis between the present time and the twenty-second Meeting in 2012, several measures to expedite the processing of submissions and to better manage the Commission’s increasing workload.  They included greater flexibility in the size of subcommissions, holding more extended and frequent meetings, tasking the subcommissions with more than one submission, and enabling Commissioners to work remotely, with the consent of submitting States.

Further by the text, the Meeting decided to continue to consider the possibility of a full-time Commission, and to assess measures to be taken beyond 2012 to reduce the projected timeline of the Commission’s workload.  The Meeting urged nominating States to fulfil their obligations concerning their nominees for Commission membership, in accordance with article 2, paragraph 5, of Annex II to the Convention.  It also called upon States in a position to do so to make voluntary contributions to the trust fund established to pay the expenses of developing-country representatives participating in the Commission’s meetings.

Eden Charles (Trinidad and Tobago), Coordinator of the Open-ended Working Group of the Whole on the Workload of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, said the text was very well-balanced and the result of intensive efforts.

Following the Meeting’s approval of the text, Spain’s representative, speaking on behalf of the European Union, said that two preambular paragraphs referring to Article 76, Annex II to the Convention, and Article 77 on the rights of the coastal State over the continental shelf were unnecessary since they referred to legal concepts, which were not the purview of the Committee.  However, the European Union had agreed to that language in the interest of consensus, he said.

Viet Nam’s representative took issue with the wording of operative paragraph 2, on the role of the informal working group, saying it should not be asked to report to the twenty-first Meeting on its recommendations.

Arif Havas Oegroseno ( Indonesia), President of the Meeting, took note of those concerns and said they would be included in the report.

By the text on the remuneration for Tribunal members (document SPLOS/L.64), the Meeting decided to set retroactively, effective from 1 January 2010, the annual net base salary at $166,596, with a corresponding post-adjustment multiplier equal to 1 per cent of the net base salary, to which would be applied the post-adjustment multiplier for Hamburg.  It also decided that the annual base salary would be adjusted accordingly and at the same time as any future revisions of the annual net base salary for members of the International Court of Justice occurring before the twenty-first Meeting of States Parties.

Speaking before action on that decision, Guatemala’s representative requested the inclusion in operative paragraph 1 of wording to state that adjustments to base salary would be made “as appropriate”, pointing out that her delegation had not been consulted before the Working Group had reached a consensus on the language of the text.  Stressing the importance of including such language, she called urgently for an oral amendment and a suspension of the Meeting to discuss the matter further.

In response, Ms. Negm clarified that she had orally read the text — without the requested language — three separate times during the Working Group’s discussions and since no objections had been raised, the text had been approved.

Several delegates agreed that consensus had been reached on the matter, saying the requested language should not be included.  Germany’s representative noted that leaving out the requested language allowed for more clarity.  Furthermore, the representatives of Argentina, Egypt and the Russian Federation opposed a return to informal consultations.

Following a 15-minute suspension, the Meeting adopted the draft decision “as is”.

Guatemala’s representative, describing the situation as “unfortunate”, said she was “amazed at delegations’ lack of understanding of the implications of striking out those words”.  Voicing several other concerns about Tribunal members’ salaries, she said her delegation would certainly address the matter of the requested language again in future.

Concerned that States parties had imitated the practices of other judicial bodies, including the International Court of Justice, in developing a base salary without adequately analysing available information, Mexico’s representative requested that the Tribunal use alternative methods.

Speaking in their national capacities, Ms. Negm ( Egypt) and Mr. Charles ( Trinidad and Tobago) underscored the importance of treating all international tribunal judges in an equitable manner.

The Meeting then went on to approve the report of its Credentials Committee (document SPLOS/213), which was presented by that body’s Chairperson, Ebenezer Appreku ( Ghana).

It also took note of the Secretary-General’s report on general issues arising with respect to the Convention.

Ingo Winkelman (Germany) presented a 9 June 2010 note verbale from the Permanent Mission of Germany (document SPLOS/210), detailing that country’s financial support to the Tribunal from 1997 to 2009, which totalled €53.1 million.

In other matters today, Serguei Tarassenko, Director of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea in the Office of Legal Affairs, gave an overview of five United Nations voluntary trust funds and one fellowship set up under various General Assembly resolutions to facilitate State attendance at intergovernmental meetings and build capacity in ocean affairs and the law of the sea.

Mr. Tarassenko said that as of 31 March 2010, the Fund to facilitate the preparation of submissions by developing States stood at $792,000 and the fund to defray the costs of participation in meetings at $628,000.  As of 31 May 2010, the fund to help developing countries attend meetings of the United Nations Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea stood at $62,000; the fund to help States with dispute settlements at $140,000; the fund to regularly process, report on and assess the state of the marine environment, including socio-economic aspects, at $30,000; and the Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe Memorial Fellowship on the Law of the Sea at $21,600.

Douglas Stevenson, Director of the Centre for Seafarers Rights at the Seaman’s Church Institute, called attention to piracy off the coast of Somalia, stressing that it was threatening merchant shipping, and calling for international cooperation to end it.  In 2008, for example, the Security Council had adopted five resolutions on the matter, he recalled.

He said a Contact Group comprising 24 countries, several international organizations and maritime industry representatives had been set up to facilitate and coordinate efforts to implement Council resolution 1851 (2009).  More than 25 countries had sent naval units to patrol the waters off the Somali coast so as to protect shipping from pirates.  The International Maritime Organization (IMO) had updated its guidelines on preventing and suppressing acts of piracy for flag States and ship operators, and the maritime industry had developed best-management practices on deterring piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the Somali coast.

However, those efforts did not provide for the seafarers who had suffered at the hands of the pirates, he said, pointing out that none of the Council’s resolutions cited the protection of merchant mariners as a rationale for international efforts to suppress piracy.  The current IMO and Contact Group guidance for shipowners and flag States did discuss how to deal with seafarers after an attack, but that guidance was limited to gathering information for military intelligence or prosecutorial purposes, rather than the well-being of seafarers he noted.

He said that, to fill that void, the Seamen’s Church Institute had started a ground-breaking clinical study to assess the effects of piracy on merchant mariners, in partnership with the Disaster Psychiatry Outreach at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.  The Institute had prepared preliminary guidelines for the post-piracy care of seafarers and submitted them to the maritime industry and Working Group 3 of the Contact Group.  Several ship-owner organizations were working on guidelines for the care of seafarers, and the IMO’s Martine Safety Committee was discussing the effect of piracy on them.  Such efforts should be lauded and encouraged since it was essential to address the needs of seafarers for humanitarian and security purposes, he said.

France’s representative said that the French and Italian Governments had reached agreement on 15 June to protect an area between the coasts of Italy and Corsica, where they would create a nature park.  They would ask the IMO to prevent ships exporting dangerous materials from crossing that area.

Nicolas Guerrero Peniche, Legal Consultant with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said the Commission facilitated cooperation projects and capacity-building in marine scientific research and the transfer of marine technology.  It would examine them in detail during next week’s Informal Consultative Process meeting.  The Commission maintained close cooperation with the Division on Oceans and Law of the Sea to review, among other things, the guide to implementing relevant provisions of the Convention relating to marine scientific research.

He said the Commission had followed with great interest various reports and statements during the Meeting, particularly since the Convention explicitly referred to the Commission several times, including in Annex VIII, on creating a list of experts from among whom State parties may choose to form a special arbitral tribunal to submit disputes on the interpretation or application of the Convention in the field of marine scientific research.  So far, 41 States had made use of that possibility and nominated up to two experts.  He invited States parties to consider nominating experts to the list if they had not yet done so, or to update their nominees if they deemed it necessary.

In closing, Meeting President Oegroseno (Indonesia) said participants had enjoyed a free and frank dialogue on many sensitive issues of great importance to States.  It had adopted important decisions concerning two institutions established by the Convention.

Alexandre Tagore Medeiros de Albuquerque, Chairman of the Commission, expressed his gratitude for efforts made to assist the Commission in addressing its workload.

Also speaking today were the representatives of Malaysia, Japan, India and the Philippines.

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For information media • not an official record