SPC Assists Countries With Maritime Boundary Treaties

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPC Assists Countries With Maritime Boundary Treaties And Deep Sea Mining

Wednesday 14 November 2012, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Noumea, New Caledonia

The High Commissioner for Kiribati in Fiji, Ms Retata Nikuata-Rimon, yesterday thanked the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) for assisting her atoll nation with its maritime boundaries, hydrographic nautical charts and deep-sea mining.

On the latter, she said it was an area ‘in which there is growing interest as it offers potential for social and economic development, although we must be cautious about the environmental impact’.

Ms Nikuata-Rimon made these comments at the 42nd Committee of Representatives of Governments and Administrations (CRGA) meeting, which is being held at the SPC headquarters in Noumea from 12 to 16 November.

CRGA is a committee of SPC’s governing body, the Conference of the Pacific Community, which meets every two years.

Earlier this year, at the Forum Leaders’ meeting in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, seven Pacific Island countries and territories (Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu,) signed and exchanged a total of eight maritime boundary agreements.

In addition, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Nauru signed a trilateral treaty on the ‘Tri-Junction Point’, a point where the exclusive economic zones of all three countries intersect.

SPC’s Applied Geoscience and Technology Division supported the countries in the determination of the agreed boundaries, working collaboratively with members and with support from SPC’s Fisheries, Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems Division and the Forum Fisheries Agency.

Agreement on boundaries has taken many years of work, often involving sensitive negotiations between members. The signing of these treaties has brought to just under 30 the total number of treaties concluded out of a total of 48 boundaries.

The signed agreements on these boundaries and zones under domestic and international law, as set out in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has now provided these countries with the foundation for improved governance, protection, conservation, and management of resources within national jurisdictions.

The new treaties will allow for more legal and jurisdictional certainty and provide an accurate and secure basis for the management of the Pacific Ocean space, including fishing activity, marine environmental protection, marine research, and management and exploration of natural resources such as deep-sea minerals.

With funding support from the European Union, SPC developed a regional legislative and regulatory framework for deep-sea minerals this year, which comes at a critical juncture as Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) show growing interest in the potential for deep-sea mining.

The framework provides a guide that will assist PICTs in developing national legislation and considering associated policy and developmental issues, should they wish to engage in deep-sea mineral exploration within their exclusive economic zones.

Many countries in the region currently do not have national legislation to deal with deep-sea mineral exploration and the framework addresses this gap.

Background information

SPC is a Pacific-based international intergovernmental organisation that assists Pacific Island countries and territories by delivering a wide range of technical, research, educational and planning services. It has 26 members: 22 Pacific Islands countries and territories and four metropolitan members, Australia, France, New Zealand and the United States of America.

CRGA is a committee of SPC’s governing body, the Conference of the Pacific Community, which meets every two years. In years that the Conference does not meet, CRGA is empowered to make decisions on SPC’s work programme and governance issues.

This annual event allows representatives of SPC’s 26 member countries to meet, exchange ideas and make decisions about the future of the organisation.

The 42nd session of CRGA will focus on strengthening relations across SPC’s divisions, the organisation’s new strategic plan for the 2013–2017 period, and its response to the recommendations made by the recent independent external review.

ENDS

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