Headquarters Hosts Thirtieth Meeting of States Parties to United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, 24-26 August

NEW YORK, 26 August (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) — The in-person plenary meeting of the thirtieth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was held, under strict COVID-19 preventive and risk-mitigation measures, at Headquarters from 24 to 26 August.

The in-person plenary meeting was convened solely for the purpose of conducting the election of seven members of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, given the impending expiry of the term of office of seven members.  (See Press Release SEA/2125.)

On the first day, the Meeting took note of the decisions adopted by the silence procedure, namely, decision 30/1 relating to “Procedure for taking decisions of the thirtieth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic”; decision 30/2 relating to “Election of the President”; decision 30/3 relating to “Adoption of the agenda”; decision 30/4 relating to “Election of Vice-Presidents”; and decision 30/5 relating to “Appointment of the Credentials Committee”.

The Meeting then addressed the following items on its agenda:  agenda item 7, entitled “Organization of work”; agenda item 12, entitled “Report of the Credentials Committee”; and agenda item 13, entitled “Election of seven members of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea”.

The Meeting elected the following seven members of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for a nine-year term starting on 1 October 2020: David J. Attard (Malta), Kathy-Ann Brown (Jamaica), Ida Caracciolo (Italy), Jielong Duan (China), María Teresa Infante Caffi (Chile), Maurice Kengne Kamga (Cameroon) and Markiyan Kulyk (Ukraine).

The Meeting agreed that consideration of the remaining items on the agenda of the thirtieth Meeting will be taken up at a later stage.  The President informed the Meeting that, following consultations, a proposed organization of work for the remaining items on the agenda will be communicated to States parties in due course, bearing in mind that agenda item 11(c), entitled “Draft budget proposals of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for the budget period 2021-2022”, will have to be considered and the decisions related to the 2021-2022 budget adopted prior to the end of the year.

A more detailed account of the proceedings of the plenary meeting of the thirtieth Meeting of States Parties will be included in the report of the Meeting, to be issued in due course as SPLOS/30/14.

Maurice Kengne Kamga (Cameroon) is the first awardee of the Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe Memorial Fellowship on the Law of the Sea to be elected to the Tribunal since the Fellowship, administered by the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, was established in 1981.

For further information on the Meeting, including its documents, please visit the website of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, at www.un.org/Depts/los/meeting_states_parties/thirtiethmeetingstatesparties.htm.