Oceans and Law of the Sea

5 July 2023 was the first day of the fifty-eighth session of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf which met for the first time in its new composition resulting from elections held in 2022.

The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf will hold its fifty-eighth session from 5 July to 22 August 2023.

Over 200,000 people have fled the crisis in Sudan to seek refuge in Chad. United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths has allocated $6 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to host communities in eastern Chad who need food and livelihood support.

Following yesterday’s landmark adoption of the historic new maritime biodiversity treaty, the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction concluded its work today, as delegates underscored the importance of the agreement’s swift implementation and rapid ratification and called for funding towards this end.

The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process today said that he was deeply concerned by the Government of Israel’s decision on 18 June to alter settlement planning procedures that have been in place since 1996, which is expected to expedite settlement expansion.

The thirty-third Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was held at Headquarters from 12 to 15 June.

With a standing ovation marking the conclusion of years of extensive negotiations, the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction today adopted a historic maritime biodiversity treaty.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the intergovernmental conference on an international legally binding instrument 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, in New York today:

The thirty-third Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea will convene at United Nations Headquarters from 12 to 16 June.

The International Committee for the Red Cross relocated nearly 300 children from the Mygoma orphanage in Khartoum to a safer location. There the United Nations Children’s Fund is providing support for the children’s medical care, feeding and other needs and is working with authorities to identify foster families.