Law of the Sea

The adoption by most nations of the world of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 40 years ago, was a “vital step to bring governance and order” to the vast collective treasure that is the ocean, said the UN chief António Guterres on Thursday.

The intergovernmental conference to draft the first-ever treaty on the ocean’s biological diversity opened its fifth and likely final session on Monday.

While the world’s oceans contain some 200,000 identified living species, the actual numbers could reach the millions ­­– all exposed to the dangers of climate change, pollution and over-exploitation. To stem these threats, the United Nations is meeting to negotiate a treaty that would protect three-quarters of the earth’s surface by 2030.

The United Nations-backed International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea today ordered that Russia release the Greenpeace ship and its crew that it seized in September following a protest over oil drilling off its coast, once the Netherlands posts a bond of 3.6 million euros.

The Netherlands today submitted a request to the United Nations-backed International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for provisional measures in a dispute with Russia over the recent arrest and detention of a ship used by Greenpeace International to stage a protest over oil drilling.

A veteran Japanese jurist and diplomat has been elected President of the United Nations-backed International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), which adjudicates issues ranging from the uses of ocean resources and continental shelves to protection of the marine environment.