Delegates negotiating the terms of a new treaty governing the planet’s high seas today considered how that instrument will interact with existing bodies and frameworks, as the Intergovernmental Conference to draft a legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity concluded its first week.
Discussions on a new high seas treaty centred today on which stakeholders — from civil society and indigenous peoples to coastal States and the private sector — should be invited to decide how to protect the biological diversity of the world’s oceans.
Delegates underlined a need to clarify how a new high seas treaty will interact with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea today as the Intergovernmental Conference to draft a legally binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity entered its third day.
With the Intergovernmental Conference to draft a new maritime diversity treaty under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea continuing its second substantive session today, delegates debated how best to share the benefits of marine genetic resources and how to monitor their use in areas beyond national jurisdictions.
Increased cooperation and recognizing the needs of developing States must lead discussions towards a legally binding convention to govern the high seas, delegates said, as an intergovernmental conference to draft the first‑ever treaty addressing the ocean’s biological diversity opened its second substantive session.
NEW YORK, 18 March (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) ― The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its forty‑ninth session at United Nations Headquarters from 28 January to 15 March. The first plenary part of the session was held from 4 to 8 February and the second from 4 to 8 March. The remaining five weeks were devoted 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 forty-ninth session from 28 January to 15 March. The plenary parts of the session will be held from 4 to 8 February and from 4 to 8 March.
NEW YORK, 16 January (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) — The resumed twenty-eighth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was held at United Nations Headquarters on 15 January.
NEW YORK, 11 January (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) — The resumed twenty-eighth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will be held at Headquarters on 15 January from 3 to 6 p.m., for the purpose of filling vacancies in the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf with respect to one vacant seat allocated to the Asia-Pacific States and one vacant seat allocated to the Eastern European States in the Commission.
The General Assembly today adopted two texts on the oceans and seas linked to the implementation of the landmark 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, with speakers asserting during the annual debate on the matter that healthy, productive, resilient oceans and seas are central to sustainable development.
