Meetings Coverage

Reaching the midpoint of its twenty-second annual session, the Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea today elected 19 members to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, the preeminent international body charged with making recommendations to coastal States on matters related to their outermost limits.

With the critical importance of submissions by coastal States to the Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf, and their cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to hundreds of millions to prepare, it was essential that every one be meticulously reviewed, delegates to the twenty-second meeting of States Parties to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea heard today as they continued their session in New York.

The world’s fight against impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide was weakened by Sudan’s failure to render President Omer Hassan A. al-Bashir and three other Sudanese to the International Criminal Court on warrants issued for crimes in Darfur, its Prosecutor told the Security Council this morning, calling on the body to take action.

With General Assembly delegations gathered to seek common ground on the concept of human security and its possible application in the work of the United Nations, senior officials called for comprehensive, people-centred strategies to tackle current and emerging threats, so millions of people struggling each day with a sense of profound insecurity could “build towards a future that is more peaceful and prosperous for all”.

Issuing its first ever decision in a maritime boundary dispute and rendering an unprecedented advisory opinion on seabed mining, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea had made unprecedented strides in the evolution of international ocean law over the last year, said delegates as the States parties to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea met today to begin its twenty-second annual session.

PARIS, 1 June — Civil society organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel must play a more active role to bring about a just, stable peace in the region, speakers said today during the day-long United Nations Meeting of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which took place in Paris. Entitled “Civil society action towards ending the occupation: harnessing the power of youth and women”, the event featured four workshops.

QUITO, ECUADOR, 1 June — As the three-day Pacific Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism drew to a close today, the Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization, Diego Morejón-Pazmiño of Ecuador, said participants had had the opportunity to bring to light the challenges still confronting the Non-Self-Governing Territories in the process of decolonization.

QUITO, ECUADOR, 31 May — On its second day, the Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for Eradication of Colonialism discussed the challenges and opportunities in the decolonization process of the Non-Self-Governing Territories.

PARIS, 31 May — The role of information technology in Palestinian social cohesion and state-building, strategies to bolster education and the need to hold Israel to account for human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory were examined this morning as the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine continued in Paris.

QUITO, ECUADOR, 30 May — In a message to the Pacific Regional Seminar on the Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged participants to promote genuine communication at all levels, formal and informal, in which interlocutors are genuinely listened to and heard, on a case-by-case-basis.