Highlights for Tuesday, 16 July 2019
Michael Lodge, ISA Secretary-General, consulting with Cai Yongsheng, ISA Secretariat (left), and Alfonso Ascencio-Herrera, ISA Legal Counsel and Deputy to the Secretary-General (center)
On Tuesday, the Council of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) continued its deliberations on the draft regulations for exploitation of mineral resources in the Area, focusing on: use of terms and scope; fundamental policies and principles; duty to cooperate and exchange of information; coastal States’ rights; and elements around applications for approval of Plans of Work in the form of contracts.Highlights of the day included the:
exchange of divergent opinions on whether the Legal and Technical Commission (LTC) should continue addressing the draft exploitation regulations or whether the Council should decide on next steps;
differing opinions on the pace of negotiations, with some delegations expressing frustration with the slow pace that pushes the finish line further into the future;
prolonged discussion on whether to include a provision for independent experts to assist and advise the LTC;
role of the Secretary-General vis-à-vis the Council and the LTC in determining whether an applicant has preference and priority; and
issue of ensuring environmental protection, taken up both as a general principle and as a component of the Plan of Work.
At lunchtime, a side event was organized by the Netherlands under the title “Nodules from Seafloor to Shore – The Blue Nodules Project.” During the afternoon, a side event organized by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) addressed ways to support the application of the ecosystem approach in the Area, focusing on ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs) and integrated assessment of the Atlantic Marine Ecosystem.For more details on the day’s events and to hear what delegates said in the breezeways, see our daily Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
IISD Reporting Services, through its ENB Meeting Coverage, provided daily web coverage and daily reports from the 2nd Part of ISA-25. In addition, IISD Reporting Services, has published a summary and analysis from the meeting, which is now available in HTML and PDF.
Photos by IISD/ENB | Diego Noguera
For photo reprint permissions, please follow instructions at our Attribution Regulations for Meeting Photo Usage Page
Lee Hyun Seung, Republic of Korea, and Mariusz Orion Jędrysek, Poland
Gulardi Nurbintoro, Indonesia
Philomène Verlaan, International Marine Minerals Society (IMMS)
Lisa Levin, Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI)
Minna Epps, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Didier Ortolland, France
Khurshed Alam, Bangladesh
Pradeep Singh, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)
Kenneth Wong, Canada
Graham Leung, Nauru
L-R: Michelle Walker and Kathy-Ann Brown, Jamaica; Emily Johnson, Australia; Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik, Norway; and Open-ended Working Group Chair Olav Myklebust
Delegates from the Republic of Korea consult before the morning session
José María Bosch Bessa and Esther Salamanca Aguado, Spain
The Fijian delegation in discussions
Gesa Seeger, Die Zeit, and Diva Amon, Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative
Urs Daniel Engels, Germany, Tallash Kantai and Asterios Tsioumanis, ENB
Duncan Currie, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), and Wini Broadbelt, the Netherlands
Kathy-Ann Brown, Jamaica, and Guy Sevrin, Belgium
The delegation from Kenya
The delegation from Singapore
Open-ended Working Group Chair Olav Myklebust, reading the latest ENB
Delegates share a laugh during a break
