Challenges and Opportunities for the CLCS: Insight from the Insiders

Abstract

The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) is one of the bodies established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to evaluate submissions made by coastal States who have ratified UNCLOS as to the limits of their continental shelves beyond 200 M. These limits define the sovereign rights of those States for the exploration and exploitation of natural resources at and below the seafloor, and the limits are defined according to criteria specified in UNCLOS. The CLCS consists of 21 members appointed for a term of 5 years according to a regional allocation, who are experts nominated by States Parties to UNCLOS in the fields of geology, geophysics and hydrography to evaluate these submissions. Three submissions have traditionally been evaluated at any one time by individual subcommissions with 7 members each. The first CLCS was appointed in 1997 and in the subsequent 15 years the Commission has approved 18 of the over 100 submissions that are anticipated. In 2008, the States Parties to UNCLOS made recommendations concerning the operation of the CLCS designed to improve the rapidity of the process. In 2012, 12 new members were elected, while 9 former members were re-elected, to the CLCS and their residency in New York was at least doubled from previous practice to a minimum of 21 weeks per year. Subsequently, it was decided to triple the number of simultaneously working subcommissions to a total of 9, so that each member is now working on three different submissions. Further changes may increase the efficiency and efficacy of the Commission. Three new members from the Western European and Others Group (WEOGs!) are here to share their thoughts about the current operation of, and potential improvements in, the modus operandi of CLCS. Presenter Bio Walter R. Roest has a PhD in marine geophysics from the VeningMeineszLaboratory of the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. After a 3 year Post-doc at the Atlantic Geoscience Centre of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, Canada, he joined the Geological Survey of Canada in Ottawa and worked mainly in potential field acquisition, processing, compilation and interpretation. During that period, he headed the Crustal Geophysics Subdivision, was acting Chief Geoscientist, and acting director of the Continental Geosciences Division of the GSC, before joining the French marine research institute Ifremer in Brest in 2003, as director of the Marine Geosciences Department. From 2004 to 2013, he headed the French UNCLOS program for the extension of the continental shelf, and led many research cruises off the French overseas territories. He is (co-) author of over 70 peer reviewed papers, dealing with topics ranging from global geodynamics, regional magnetics and tectonics to detailed magnetic interpretation methodology for exploration purposes. Despite his Dutch citizenship, Walter Roest was nominated by France to be a member of the Commission on the limits of the continental shelf, and elected in 2012. Martin V. Heinesen has a Cand.Scient. degree in Geology from Copenhagen University, Denmark (1987). He has ever since worked for the Government of the Faroe Islands – as the head of the Geological Department at the Museum of Natural History (1987-2000); director of the Faroese Petroleum Administration (1993-97); director of the Faroese Geological Survey (2000-03); and since 2003 as the project manager of the Continental Shelf Project of the Kingdom of Denmark, with respect to the Faroe Islands. He is an external lecturer in Geology at the University of the Faroe Islands, and he is member of the Delegation of the Kingdom of Denmark in charge of continental shelf delimitation negotiations between the Faroe Islands and neighboring coastal States, within and beyond 200 M. In 2012 he was elected as member of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, nominated by Denmark together with the other Nordic countries. Richard Haworth has an Honours Degree in Physics (with Geology and Mathematics) from Durham University, U.K. and a Ph.D. in Marine Geophysics from the University of Cambridge. Much of his Ph.D. research work was carried out on Canadian research vessels, which is why in 1968 he emigrated to Canada. He spent 15 years as a marine geophysical research scientist working out of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia before he thought he needed to seek wider horizons. That took him to the British Geological Survey for 7 years as Chief Geophysicist, before returning home to Canada in 1990. He was a Director General of the Geological Survey of Canada from 1990 until June 2000 when he was appointed Assistant Deputy Minister with Natural Resources Canada. He retired from the public service in 2003, returning to Nova Scotia where as an Adjunct Professor at Dalhousie University he taught Environmental Policy for 6 years before he returned to his previous work on the Law of the Sea by preparing one Submission to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and the editing another. In 2012, he was elected to the Commission