Annual Treaty Event Shows Support for Agreements on Ocean Biodiversity, Nuclear Weapon Prohibition
The international community reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening the multilateral treaty framework by undertaking a total of 32 actions at the annual treaty event which ended today, on the sidelines of the seventy-ninth United Nations General Assembly high-level week.
Two Heads of State, 1 Head of Government, 19 ministers and 3 other high-ranking officials, representing 25 States, participated in this year’s four-day treaty event.
Under the theme of “Strengthening the Multilateral Treaty Framework”, the event highlighted, in particular, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to secure a future of prosperity and peace for people and planet, leaving no one behind.
Actions during the treaty event centred on the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, with 12 additional signatures, as well as 5 new ratifications. Since the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement opened for signature at the 2023 treaty event, it has garnered a total of 104 signatures and 13 ratifications. It will enter into force following the sixtieth ratification, approval, acceptance or accession.
“I am encouraged by the number of additional signatures and ratifications of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement. These actions during the treaty event have brought us closer to the entry into force of this instrument which is of crucial importance for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of large areas of the ocean and for addressing the triple planetary crises of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss,” said Stephen Mathias, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel.
This year’s treaty event also featured a ceremony on 24 September for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, where three States joined the Treaty. The ceremony was overseen by the Acting Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and UN Legal Counsel, with remarks from the UN High Representative and Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu.
Representatives from Kazakhstan, as the President of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Coordination Committee, and South Africa and Uruguay, as co-chairs of the informal working group on universalization of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also participated, as well as the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
As of today, 94 States have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and 73 have ratified it or acceded to it.
Also undertaken during the 2024 treaty event were actions by States on multilateral treaties aimed at the protection of the environment, such as the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean known as the “Escazú Agreement”, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, and the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Background
In September 2000, the Secretary-General of the United Nations invited world leaders attending the landmark Millennium Summit to take advantage of their presence at UN Headquarters to join a wide range of major international treaties. By signing multilateral conventions or depositing their instruments of ratification, accession or through other instruments establishing the consent to be bound, the Member States contribute significantly to the advancement of the rule of law in international relations and the cause of peace.
Since then, the treaty event has been held annually, usually coinciding with the general debate of the General Assembly in September. Since 2000, the United Nations treaty events have resulted in more than 2,000 treaty-related actions, including signatures, ratifications and accessions.
The treaty event may be used to sign and ratify or accede to any of the more than 600 multilateral treaties for which the Secretary-General acts as depositary.
Resources
On-demand video of the 19 September press briefing by David Nanopoulos, Chief of the Treaty Section, about the 2024 treaty event, can be found on UN WebTV at https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1j/k1jyq3abf3.
The 2024 treaty event booklets in English and French are available from the Media Documents Centre at the UN Headquarters, and online in English and in French.
A complete list of the multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations is available on the website of the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs at https://treaties.un.org.
For additional information, contact Paulina Kubiak Greer, Department of Global Communications, at email: kubiakp@un.org.