Round-up Release

Commission on Limits of Continental Shelf Concludes Thirty-second Session

 

NEW YORK, 9 September (Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs) — The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf held its thirty-second session at United Nations Headquarters from 15 July to 30 August 2013.  The session included two weeks of plenary meetings (12 to 16 August and 26 to 30 August 2013).  Five weeks were devoted to the technical examination of submissions at the geographic information systems laboratories and other technical facilities of the Division.

Eight submissions were presented by the following States:  the Russian Federation regarding its partial revised submission in respect of the Okhotsk Sea; Pakistan; France and South Africa regarding their joint submission in the area of the Crozet Archipelago and the Prince Edward Islands; France in respect of La Réunion Island and Saint-Paul and Amsterdam Islands; Tuvalu, France and New Zealand (Tokelau) with regard to their submission in respect of the area of the Robbie Ridge; China in respect of its submission concerning part of the East China Sea; Kiribati; and the Republic of Korea.

During the session, the Commission decided to reconstitute the Subcommission established to consider the submission of the Russian Federation which had been made on 20 December 2001.  The Commission also decided to establish Subcommissions to consider the submissions made by Pakistan and by Norway in respect of Bouvetøya and Dronning Maud Land.  This brings the number of active Subcommissions to nine.

The six Subcommissions established in respect of submissions made by Uruguay, the Cook Islands in respect of the Manihiki Plateau, Argentina, Ghana, Iceland in respect of the Ægir Basin area and in the western and southern parts of Reykjanes Ridge, and Denmark in respect of the area north of the Faroe Islands continued with their consideration of these submissions during the thirty-second session and met with the respective delegations.

The Commission welcomed the establishment of the Open-ended Working Group on the Conditions of Service of the Members of the Commission by the twenty-third Meeting of States Parties, following its request to the Meeting of States Parties.  In this connection, the Commission conducted an internal survey on the working conditions of the members of the Commission.  The results of this survey will be brought to the attention of the Coordinators of the Working Group.

The thirty-third session of the Commission will be held from 7 October to 22 November 2013, with no plans for plenary meetings. 

The Commission decided to hold its sessions in 2014 as follows, pending the approval by the General Assembly of the dates for the plenary parts of the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth sessions:

(a)   The thirty-fourth session would be held from 27 January to 14 March 2014.  The plenary parts of the session would be held from 10 to 14 February and 10 to 14 March 2014;

(b)   The thirty-fifth session would be held from 21 July to 5 September 2014.  The plenary parts of the session would be held from 4 to 8 August and 2 to 5 September 2014; and

(c)   The thirty-sixth session would be held from 13 October to 28 November 2014, with no plenary meetings.

Details of the thirty-second session will be reflected in the Statement by the Chairperson of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf on the progress of work in the Commission, which will be issued as document CLCS/80.

For additional information on the work of the Commission, see the website of the Division at www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm.

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