Oceans and Law of the Sea

NEW YORK, 8 December (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) — The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its thirty-ninth session at United Nations Headquarters from 19 October to 4 December 2015.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on the twentieth anniversary of the opening for signature of the Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement), today:

NEW YORK, 15 October (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) ― The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf will hold its thirty-ninth session from 19 October to 4 December. 

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, delivered by Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), for the “Our Oceans” conference, in Valparaiso, Chile, today:

NEW YORK, 16 September (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) ― The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its thirty-eighth session at United Nations Headquarters from 20 July to 4 September.  Besides the two weeks of plenary meetings (3-7 and 24-28 August), the Commission, working through its subcommissions, devoted five weeks to the technical examination of submissions at the Geographic Information Systems laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea.

NEW YORK, 15 July (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) — The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf will hold its thirty-eighth session from 20 July to 4 September.

New York, 22 June — Member States at the United Nations have agreed to develop a legally binding instrument to conserve and sustainably use marine biological diversity of areas beyond their national borders.

NEW YORK, 15 June (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea) ― The twenty-fifth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was held at Headquarters from 8 to 12 June.

Delegates concluded the twenty-fifth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea today, adopting a draft decision on the workspace needed for those involved in the implementation of the “oceans constitution”, and more broadly, tackling thorny maritime disputes that continued to hamper peaceful ocean governance.

The twenty-fifth Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea opened today, with top officials from the instrument’s three main bodies shining the spotlight on ways they had advanced peaceful dispute settlement, regulated mineral activities in the international seabed and facilitated implementation of the “constitution for the ocean”.