Secretary-General to Announce Oceans Initiative at Yeosu International Conference on Law of Sea Convention Commemoration, 12 August

Background Release

Secretary-General to announce Oceans initiative at Yeosu International

Conference On Law of Sea Convention Commemoration, 12 August

NEW YORK, 31 July (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs) ― The Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea and the Korea Maritime Institute, in cooperation with the Organizing Committee for Expo 2012 Yeosu Korea, are organizing the year’s Yeosu International Conference in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the opening for signature of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The Yeosu International Conference will take place at Yeosu, the Republic of Korea, on 12 August, under the theme “UNCLOS at 30”.  The Conference will be divided into two sessions, the first one on “The 30th Anniversary of UNCLOS – Its Achievements and Future”, and the second on “ Asia and UNCLOS”.

Former members of national delegations to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, Judges from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, representatives from the International Seabed Authority, members from the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and experts from the academia will speak at the Conference.  The United Nations Legal Counsel and the Director of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea will also speak.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend the Conference, where he is expected to announce an initiative on oceans.

For additional information about the Yeosu International Conference, please visit the website at http://www.un.org/Depts/los/reference_files/yeosu.htm.

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For information media • not an official record