Plenary
28 November 2005
Oceans and the Law of the Sea
Statement by Senator Robert Ray
Parliamentary Adviser
to the Australian Mission to the United Nations
(Check against delivery)
Mr President
A year ago we marked the important milestone of the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Year by year, we have seen a strengthening in the status of the Convention as the foundation of the global community’s interaction with, and use of, the ocean and its resources.
Since last year, we have moved closer to realising the objective of universal adherence to the Convention, and Australia congratulates those States which have acceded in the past year - Latvia, Burkina Faso, and Estonia. It cannot be denied that significant portions of the Convention have now formed part of the corpus of customary international law.
In coming years, we should continue to focus on ensuring effective oceans governance through implementation of the Convention and related instruments. We also need to continue our work in identifying any gaps in the regime for high seas governance, and to work towards building cooperative mechanisms to properly conserve and sustainably manage the living resources of the oceans.
Given the importance we attach to as-broad-as-possible participation by States in informal meetings for the preparation of General Assembly resolutions, Australia wishes to express its concern as to the numerous scheduling clashes with other essential meetings this year. These clashes have made our and other delegations’ effective participation in the informal preparatory process extremely difficult, and we call on the Secretary-General to ensure that this situation is not repeated in coming years.
We express our thanks to the coordinators and the Secretariat, whose jobs seem to get harder every year in line with the resolutions’ ever-increasing length. There are many topical aspects of the law of the sea and international fisheries that are worthy of our close attention, but their prominence is only obscured by our collective insistence on repeating the same things year after year. We urge again that all members endeavour to shorten these resolutions in the future.
As usual, Australia will co-sponsor and, if necessary, vote in favour of both resolutions before us. We are pleased with the attention given to issues such as maritime security, the sustainable management and conservation of marine living resources, and the work of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Allow me to elaborate.
Maritime security
Mr President
Threats to maritime security cannot be ignored. The potential impact of threats to maritime security on sea transportation, safety of navigation and the marine environment, as well as the threat posed to human lives and property, call for effective counter-measures at the international, regional and bilateral levels.
For this reason, Australia welcomes paragraph 50 of the omnibus resolution, and looks forward to working with other States to continue to address threats to maritime security. We welcome and support practical measures to improve maritime security, and would be ready to explore requests for technical assistance and capacity-building.
In particular, we welcome the recent adoption by the International Maritime Organisation in October this year of two protocols amending the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA Convention), and its 1988 Protocol relating to Fixed Platforms on the Continental Shelf.
When implemented, the new offences created by these Protocols would represent an important tool in the fight against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Australia will give early consideration to signing and implementing the protocols in accordance with its domestic treaty-making processes, and urges other States to do the same, as soon as possible, in respect of both the original SUA Convention and Fixed Platforms Protocol, as well as the recently adopted amending protocols.
In addition, Australia welcomes the adoption in November 2004 of the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP). The agreement provides a transparent means of engaging countries in the Asia-Pacific region on maritime security through information sharing.
Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
Mr President
Australia welcomes paragraph 35 of the omnibus resolution. Last year, Australia lodged with the CLCS its submission on the outer limit of the shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the territorial sea baseline. We look forward to working with the Commission in the coming months as it formulates recommendations on which our final and binding outer limit will be based.
We are confident that those recommendations will emerge within a reasonable timeframe. However, we are concerned that, for reasons beyond the Commission’s control, this will not necessarily be so for the States that follow us, given that the Commission only has capacity to deal in detail with two submissions concurrently.
We welcome the work of the Division on Ocean Affairs and Law of the Sea in assisting to build the capacity of States preparing submissions. From Australia’s experience, preparing a submission is a demanding technical, scientific and legal task, and we are pleased to be able to share our experiences with other States undertaking the process of planning or preparing their own submissions.
Fisheries and straddling and highly migratory fish stocks
Mr President
Turning to fisheries, Australia welcomes the accession, since our last session, of four more States to the vitally important United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA) - Belize, Kiribati, Guinea and Liberia. Wide acceptance of the Agreement’s provisions will add to their impact in enhancing the international law of fisheries.
Moreover, the UNFSA review conference in May 2006 will be an important opportunity for States to take stock, and critically assess the effectiveness of the Agreement in taking forward cooperative and sustainable fisheries management, and the international law of the sea more generally.
Regional organizations play an important role in the management of responsible and ecologically sustainable fishing, especially in areas where no management regime currently exists. In Australia’s region, we welcome various developments with respect to regional fisheries management organisations.
The Western and Central Pacific Ocean Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), currently chaired by Australia, held its first meeting in the Federated States of Micronesia in December 2004. The second meeting will be held in a few days.
The stocks of the Western and Central Pacific are a significant natural resource for Pacific coastal States. Australia will continue to work hard with its neighbours to ensure that this regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) represents world’s best practice in the sustainable management and conservation of the highly migratory species. We warmly welcome the accessions to the Honolulu Convention this year of the Philippines, Japan Canada, Vanuatu and France. It is particularly gratifying to see such a broad participation in the WCPFC by coastal States and distant-water fishing interests.
We look forward to the adoption, in the near future, of the Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement. It too should bring best international practice to the conservation and sustainable management of all fish stocks in the relevant part of the Indian Ocean.
And Australia is also pleased to inform members of a recent initiative of Australia, New Zealand and Chile to commence negotiations for a new RFMO to regulate currently unregulated fish stocks in the South Pacific – one of the last remaining areas of the high seas without a comprehensive international management regime for discrete and straddling stocks. The first formal negotiating conference will be held in Wellington in February 2006, and we invite all States and entities with a genuine interest in the fishery to consider participating actively in the new RFMO, at the earliest possible stage.
UN Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (UNICPOLOS)
Mr President
The recommendations of the sixth meeting of the UNICPOLOS are the source of much of the new language in the resolutions before us. This attests, once more, to the value of this process and the role it plays in enhancing and informing the UNGA debate.
Australia supports and welcomes the renewed mandate of the Informal Consultative Process and hopes that it will continue to bring focused and expert deliberation – including from civil society – to complex issues facing oceans and the law of the sea.
High seas biodiversity
Mr President
Australia has been a long-standing champion of high seas biodiversity conservation, and is seriously concerned about the impact of a range of human activities upon the vulnerable ecosystems of the high seas. Damaging impacts are caused by a range of destructive fishing techniques, and also by the ever-present scourge of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. We should not limit our focus simply to the issue of bottom trawling.
The efficacy of measures taken will depend in part on the willingness of flag States to properly regulate and control the activities of their nationals. Australia will continue to ensure that fishing is conducted responsibly and managed through the use of appropriate measures. We will also continue to work hard to improve governance over the high seas more generally.
Australia welcomes the participation of NGOs, industry representatives and scientists in the planned February meeting of the Ad hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group studying the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. These areas cover about half of the world’s surface, and their unique biodiversity has been the subject of much international discussion over recent years. We hope that the meeting in February will help us identify options for better conserving and sustainably managing that biodiversity.
Mr President
We welcome the language on marine debris. Discarded fishing nets and other gear – such as plastics – constitute a significant danger to marine mammals and turtles in Australia’s region, and globally. Greater international cooperation is required. The first phase of the Global Marine Assessment – the so-called ‘assessment of assessments’ – will be important. Better scientific information is crucial for improving our decision-making, and for better focusing our conservation-based initiatives.
Illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing
Mr President
Australia would like to point to its strong desire for enhanced measures to tackle illegal and unregulated fishing. We continue to act firmly against unlicensed vessels fishing in Australian waters, and have responded promptly to situations of apparent illegal or unregulated vessels in areas regulated by RFMOs, in turn raising awareness among Member States.
Australia recently boarded a vessel suspected of fishing illegally in the Australian EEZ with the express consent of the flag state, Cambodia. The Australian Government is grateful to the Government of Cambodia for its cooperative approach, which sets the example for other States that become aware of illegal conduct by their flagged vessels.
Consistent with the UNFSA, it is Australia’s strong view that States have an obligation to either join relevant RFMOs where entitled to do so, or to otherwise refrain from fishing in the RFMO-regulated area unless they agree to apply all relevant conservation measures. Australia does not view the general obligations under UNCLOS and customary international law with respect to the conservation and sustainable management of marine living resources as merely aspirational or amorphous. They are concrete and substantive obligations, with direct application.
Australia welcomes the reference in the omnibus resolution to the Ministerial Declaration – ‘Moving from Words to Action’ – stemming from the May 2005 St John’s Conference. The Declaration calls on States to take practical steps to end unsustainable fishing practices, and reinforces the commitment of all nations to manage fisheries sustainably. Australia welcomes the impetus given by the Declaration to fleshing out of the meaning of a ‘genuine link’ between flag State and vessel in the registration of fishing vessels, and would welcome greater transparency in fishing vessel ownership across the globe.
Finally, Australia would also like to leave other members with the thought that perhaps treating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing as a single problem reduced to an ‘IUU’ acronym has outlived its usefulness. After all, IUU fishing is not one problem but three, each of which requires separate international responses. Those responses must hone in on flag States’ responsibility over their vessels when fishing on the high seas, or in the exclusive economic zones of other States. Flag State accountability should be the focus of our efforts.
Thank you.