United Republic of Tanzania’s Killey Mwitasi Concludes Hamilton Shirley

 

Amerasinghe Memorial Fellowship on Law of the Sea

 

NEW YORK, 15 March (Office of Legal Affairs) — Killey Mwitasi of the United Republic of Tanzania, the twenty-third recipient of the Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe Memorial Fellowship on the Law of the Sea, completed his fellowship today with the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, where he has been conducting research on judicial decisions dealing with maritime boundary delimitation.

Prior to that, and as part of the Fellowship programme, Mr. Mwitasi spent approximately four months at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.  Just ahead of completion of that work, he met with the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, Patricia O’Brien, on 15 March.

The award had been made by Ms. O’Brien on the basis of the recommendation by a High-level Advisory Panel.  The Panel was comprised of the following:  Jorge Argüello, Permanent Representative of Argentina; Isabelle Picco, Permanent Representative of Monaco; Kaire M. Mbuende, then Permanent Representative of Namibia (Chairman); Sanja Štiglic, Permanent Representative of Slovenia; Juan Antonio Yáñez Barnuevo, then Permanent Representative of Spain; and Palitha T.B. Kohona, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka.

Prized for the academic opportunity and practical experience it provides to participants, the Fellowship involves a course of study at a participating university or institution and a period of practical training at the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea in the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs.

The Fellowship was established in 1981 in memory of Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe, first President of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.  That Conference, which began its work in 1973, adopted the Convention in April 1982, opening it for signature in December that year.  The Convention now has 160 States parties and is generally regarded as “the charter of the oceans”, regulating international legal norms for all matters relating to the governance, uses and protection of the oceans.

Part of the capacity-building programme of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, the Fellowship is also part of the Office of Legal Affairs’ overall programme of teaching, study, dissemination and wider appreciation of international law.

Previous fellows have come from nearly all regions of the world:   Argentina; Barbados; Bulgaria; Cameroon; Cape Verde; Chile; Colombia; Indonesia; Iran; Kenya; Nepal; Nigeria; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Samoa; Sao Tome and Principe; Seychelles; Sri Lanka; Thailand; Tonga; Trinidad and Tobago; United Republic of Tanzania; Viet Nam; and the former Yugoslavia.  They have devoted their study and training period to various topics such as:  maritime delimitation; methods for the determination of the outer limits of the continental shelf; maritime transport of hazardous materials; marine scientific research; the marine environment; crimes at sea; settlement of disputes; and the legal regime of genetic resources in areas of the deep seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

Seventeen world-renowned universities and institutes participate in the Fellowship programme.  All of them waive their usual tuition fees in order to allow the Fellows to carry out their research and study at the institution or university of their choice.  These institutions are:  Centre for Oceans Law and Policy, University of Virginia, United States; Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada; Faculty of Law, Oxford University, United Kingdom; Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland; Institute of International Studies, University of Chile, Santiago; Institute of Maritime Law, University of Southampton, United Kingdom; Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts, United States; Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, Germany; Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea, University of Utrecht, Netherlands; Research Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom; Rhodes Academy of Ocean Law and Policy, Greece; School of Law, University of Georgia, United States; School of Law, University of Miami, Florida, United States; School of Law, University of Washington, United States; William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii, United States; Gerard J. Mangone Center for Marine Policy, University of Delaware, United States; and Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

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For information media • not an official record