Background Release

Commission on Limits of Continental Shelf, Meeting at Headquarters

 

19 March — 27 April, Will Hold Plenary 9 — 20 April

 

NEW YORK, 5 April (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) ― Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 66/231 of 24 December 2011, the twenty-ninth session of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf is being held in New York from 19 March to 27 April 2012.  The plenary part of the session will be held from 9 to 20 April.  The periods from 19 March to 5 April and from 23 to 27 April are allocated for the technical examination of submissions at the Geographic Information Systems laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division.

At the outset of the session, the Commission will elect a new Chairperson, due to the untimely passing of Mr. Alexandre Tagore Medeiros de Albuquerque ( Brazil) on 29 March.  Mr. Albuquerque had been a Member of the Commission since 1997.  He was elected Chairperson in 2007 and re-elected in 2009.  Mr. Albuquerque was a renown scientist in the field of hydrography; in Brazil he was the Head of the Executive Committee on the outer limits of the Brazilian Continental Shelf.

In the course of the session, the Commission will continue the examination of data and other materials submitted by the following coastal States parties to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea concerning the outer limits of their continental shelf in areas where those limits extend beyond 200 nautical miles:  the revised submission of Barbados; Japan; France (in respect of the areas of the French Antilles and the Kerguelen Islands); Uruguay; Philippines (in respect of the Benham Rise region); and the Cook Islands (concerning the Manihiki Plateau).

The Commission will also receive formal presentations of the submissions made by Guyana and Mexico (in respect of the Eastern polygon in the Gulf of Mexico).  Upon the request of the respective submitting States, presentations on the remaining submissions that have been initially included on the provisional agenda for the session (notably, Iceland in the Ægir Basin area and in the Western and Southern parts of Reykjanes Ridge; Pakistan; France in respect of La Réunion Island and Saint-Paul and Amsterdam Islands; and Sri Lanka) have been deferred to a later session.

As required under the Rules of Procedure of the Commission, the executive summaries of all new submissions, including all charts and coordinates, have been made public by the Secretary‑General through continental shelf notifications circulated to Member States of the United Nations, as well as the States parties to the Convention.  The executive summaries are available on the Division’s website at http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/clcs_home.htm.

Also, the summaries of recommendations already adopted by the Commission are available on the above-referenced website.

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

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For information media • not an official record