The world must galvanize collective action to protect and preserve the planet’s major water bodies, experts said today at the opening of a two-day preparatory meeting on the 2020 United Nations Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14.
The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf will hold its fifty-second session from 27 January to 13 March.
The General Assembly today adopted two resolutions on the oceans and seas linked to implementation of the landmark 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, with speakers asserting during their annual debate that threats to the world’s marine ecosystem require firm political commitment and action.
NEW YORK, 2 December (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) — The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its fifty‑first session at United Nations Headquarters from 14 October to 29 November 2019. There were no plenary parts during the session and its seven weeks were devoted entirely to the technical examination of submissions at the geographic information systems laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division.
The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf will hold its fifty-first session from 14 October to 29 November.
Delegates elaborating the terms of a new treaty under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea pledged to continue negotiating in the spirit of cooperation and good faith, as the Intergovernmental Conference tasked with drafting a legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity concluded its third session today.
Experts drafting a new global instrument on biodiversity in ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction today deliberated which stakeholders — ranging from adjacent coastal States to indigenous peoples to the general public — should be consulted about planned activities under the treaty, as well as their potential role in environmental impact assessments.
Experts working to draft a new treaty on biodiversity in areas of the ocean beyond national jurisdiction today weighed provisions aimed at prohibiting States from claiming sovereignty over marine genetic resources in those areas, with speakers diverging on the question of whether their use is the “common heritage of mankind”.
Continuing negotiations to draft a new treaty on biodiversity in ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction, delegates today deliberated who should be entitled to make proposals related to area-based management tools under the auspices of the new instrument, as well as which broader principles should underpin them.
Delegates working to draft a new treaty on biodiversity in ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction today continued to tackle issues related to capacity-building and the transfer of marine technology — widely viewed as crucial to help developing countries implement the new instrument — as negotiations entered their second week.
