Report on the Work of the United Nations Open-Ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea at Its Twenty-Fourth Meeting, 18–21 June 2024

At the 2004 Fifth Meeting of the United Nations Open-Ended Informal Consultative Process (ICP) on Oceans and the Law of the Sea the subject of New sustainable uses of the oceans, including the conservation and management of the biological diversity of the seabed in areas beyond national jurisdiction and its implications, such as the establishment of marine protected areas, were discussed. On 4 February 1975 a policy instrument, the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), was adopted by an intergovernmental meeting convened in Barcelona by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). One of the main objectives of the MAP was to promote the conclusion of a framework convention and related protocols with technical annexes for the protection of the Mediterranean environment. Keywords: Barcelona; informal consultative process (ICP); Law of the Sea; Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP); Mediterranean environment; United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

This presentation analyses the outcomes of the 8th ICP meeting devoted to Marine Genetic Resources, from the perspective of policy issues arising from the international debate at that meeting. After describing the purpose and working procedures of the ICP, findings derived from the specific panel discussions and state-to-state debate during the meeting are summarized. Common elements between findings from the panels and discussions, as well as tensions among positions of states, are identified. With regard to policy and legal issues that remained contentious and unresolved, eight considerations underlying divergent views are considered. It is suggested that these divergences may themselves be rooted in further deep-seated tensions between developing and developed states, as well as between commercial benefits and environmental interests. It is concluded that considerably more international debate is necessary in order to develop a better understanding of the contentious issues and to agree on a common way forward. Future solutions at the international level will require patience and realism, but in the meantime practical measures can be put forward that would generate benefits to all states and stakeholders.

This article briefly reviews the current status of high seas bottom fishing and its impacts. It then traces the evolution of major intergovernmental discussions on these issues up to the 5th meeting of the UN Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea in June 2004, including the involvement of scientists and conservation organisations. Next, it highlights the four key arguments presented to date on the need for immediate action to curtail high seas bottom trawling: that it is largely unregulated and unsustainable, severely impacts deep-sea biodiversity, and is a highly destructive fishing technique. In addition, it draws attention to an important emerging argument on equity considerations. Rights and duties regarding conservation of sedentary species on the coastal state's continental margin beyond 200 nautical miles are also considered. A final section suggests possible solutions to the management impasse regarding high seas bottom trawl fisheries, covering the authority to regulate, the need for deep ocean assessment, strengthening the international community's stake in deep-sea conservation and some of the tools available.

Report on the Work of the United Nations Openended Informal Consultative Process Established by the General Assembly in its Resolution 54/33 in Order to Facilitate the Annual Review by the Assembly of Developments in Ocean Afairs at its Second Meeting, Held at United Nations Headquarters from 7 to 11 May 2001†

Report on the Work of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea at its First Meeting, Held at United Nations Headquarters from 30 May to 2 June 2000*

SUMMARY The present report has been prepared in compliance with the request made by the General Assembly in paragraph 110 of its resolution 60/30 that the Secretary-General submit to the Assembly at its sixty-first session his annual comprehensive report on developments and issues relating to oceans and the law of the sea. It is also submitted to States parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, pursuant to article 319 of the Convention, to be considered by the meeting of States parties under the agenda item entitled "Report of the Secretary-General under article 319 for the information of States parties on issues of a general nature, relevant to States parties, that have arisen with respect to the Convention on the Law of the Sea." It will serve as a basis for discussion at the seventh meeting of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea and contains information on developments and issues relating to ecosystem approaches and oceans, the topic chosen for the seventh meeting, as recommended by the General Assembly. The report contains information on the status of the Convention and its implementing Agreements, on declarations and statements made by States under articles 287, 298 and 310 of the Convention and on recent submissions to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The report includes a section on capacity-building activities and elaborates on recent developments regarding international shipping, safety and security of navigation, People at sea, protection of the marine environment and conservation of marine living resources and the Indian Ocean tsunami. Finally, it provides information concerning the settlement of disputes and inter-agency coordination and cooperation.

IX United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (IX UNICPOLOS), United Nations headquarters, New York, 23–27 June 2008

The United Nations (UN) and World Bank programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Deforestation (REDD) plus improving forest governance (REDD+) promotes carbon-emission reductions and sustainable forest management. The World Bank and the UN require developing countries to prepare for REDD+ via a consultation process with input from indigenous and forest-dependent peoples. This article focuses on stakeholder consultations carried out under the Ugandan REDD+ preparation process, examining whether these fulfill the conditions necessary for substantive local democratic representation. The article shows that even though REDD+ claims to be democratic and participatory, the Uganda program allows the input of only a few selected stakeholders – mainly the government actors and a limited number of NGOs. Further, despite claiming to be democratic and participatory, the program privileges REDD+'s programmatic goals over democratic procedures. In this context, the REDD+ consultations serve largely to—1) 'educate' the participants to secure their support in implementing the 'technical' aspects of the programme, 2) help the government to legitimise its REDD+ strategy; and 3) speed up the implementation of the REDD+ programme despite the lack of substantive representation.

In the declaration on the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations (General Assembly resolution 75/1), Member States tasked me to report before the end of the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly with recommendations to advance Our Common Agenda and to respond to current and future challenges. In response, in addition to involving the United Nations system as a whole, I embarked upon a process of reflection, consisting of four tracks engaging a broad array of stakeholders, including Member States, prominent thought leaders, young people and civil society. The process built on the year-long anniversary global listening exercise, when over 1.5 million people from all 193 Member States took part in an online survey. Polling firms also conducted surveys in 70 countries. These consultations showed significant public support for international cooperation and a desire for more networked, inclusive and effective multilateralism in the future.

PROTOCOL: The effects of cannabis liberalization laws on health, safety, and socioeconomic outcomes: An evidence and gap map.

Ecological restoration, when implemented effectively and sustainably, contributes to protecting biodiversity; improving human health and wellbeing; increasing food and water security; delivering goods, services, and economic prosperity; and supporting climate change mitigation, resilience, and adaptation. It is a solutions-based approach that engages communities, scientists, policymakers, and land managers to repair ecological damage and rebuild a healthier relationship between people and the rest of nature. When combined with conservation and sustainable use, ecological restoration is the link needed to move local, regional, and global environmental conditions from a state of continued degradation, to one of net positive improvement. The second edition of the International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration (the Standards) presents a robust framework for restoration projects to achieve intended goals, while addressing challenges including effective design and implementation, accounting for complex ecosystem dynamics (especially in the context of climate change), and navigating trade-offs associated with land management priorities and decisions.

Regionalization of migration is not a new phenomenon, which is developing alongside its globalization. The globalization of migration driven by the increased migration interdependence between labor-surplus and laborshortage countries, is manifested in the growth of the number of countries participating in the population exchange and the number of international migrants, foundation of the support framework of the global migration governance, etc. At the same time, the level of liberalization of migration flows is significantly lower than that of commercial and financial flows. The territorial mobility is reducing, that may be seen as a symptom of the attenuation of globalization of people’s movements. The aggravation of contradictions between sending and receiving countries hinders the development of global migration governance. In contrast the regionalization of migration has been increasing markedly over the previous decades. It is being revealed in the growth of people’s movements on the territories of the global North and even more in areas of the South which house more migrants from the developing regions of the world than the North. The enlargement of regional flows leads to the emergence of the major donors of migrants in the North and major recipients of migrants in the South as well as enhances the relevance of the consequences of emigration for the sending countries in the North and the effects of immigration for the receiving countries in the South. The low efficiency of unilateral measures of migration governance and the lack of global partnership in this field make increasingly important the regulation of population movements at the sub-global level. The cooperation between the countries concerned is being carried out both in a formal format within the integration associations and by means of informal regional consultative process. The rules governing migration issues are being increasingly included into regional multilateral agreements. The most developed regional regulation system of migration is created have within the EU, followed with a wide margin by the MERCOSUR, ЕАEU and ASEAN. Although the regional consultative process is not binding for participating countries, it contributes to moving from de facto to de jure policy coherence in migration governance. Given the inevitable obstacles to the territorial expansion of such regional organizations and to the creation of global alliances modelled on them, regional migration regulation will remain an integral element of the architecture of the future global governance.

In addition to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, alternate strategies to mitigate climate change are entering the policy debate, such as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), which aims to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Despite being in the early stages of development, these interventions have already been indicated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as necessary contributors to the net zero transition. CDR has been at the centre of two public consultation processes in 2023, one by the European Union and one by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. These two consultation processes provide an opportunity to have an initial understanding of the types of actors participating in such consultations and their positioning regarding key issues in the governance and deployment of CDR interventions. This study maps the stakeholders participating in these consultations according to their defining characteristics and analyses the content of their submissions to identify the main arguments presented. In both cases, most participants are based in the Global North, are for-profit actors and focus their activities on farming or greenhouse gas removal. The analysis of the content of the submissions reveals a wide range of positions that can be divided into expansive and restrictive. Expansive stances are mostly emphasized by actors from the for-profit sector, whereas the restrictive positions are emphasized by non-governmental organizations. This divide suggests the need for a governance set-up capable of balancing diverse perspectives while ensuring an equitable and effective deployment of these technologies to address the global challenge of climate change.

As the world comes together through the WHO design and consultation process on a new medical counter-measures platform, we propose an enhanced APT-A (Access to Pandemic Tools Accelerator) that builds on the previous architecture but includes two new pillars - one for economic assistance and another to combat structural inequalities for future pandemic preparedness and response. As part of the APT-A, and in light of the Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparation & Response's call for an enhanced end-to-end platform for access to essential health technologies, we propose a new mechanism that we call the Pandemic Open Technology Access Accelerator (POTAX) that can be implemented through the medical countermeasures platform and the pandemic accord currently under negotiation through the World Health Assembly and supported by the High-Level Meeting review on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response at the United Nations. This mechanism will provide (1) conditional financing for new vaccines and other essential health technologies requiring companies to vest licenses in POTAX and pool intellectual property and other data necessary to allow equitable access to the resulting technologies. It will also (2) support collective procurement as well as measures to ensure equitable distribution and uptake of these technologies.

After 15 years of progress towards the unprecedented Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the world has turned its attention to the successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a period of transition to the newly adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In reviewing achievements and pending business surrounding the eight MDGs, the international community, led by the United Nations, undertook a thorough consultation process with stakeholders from all spheres of society and agreed on 17 SDGs to be pursued over the next 15 years. With the overarching aspiration of bringing people and the planet closer together and leaving no one behind, the 2030 Agenda is a unique opportunity to inspire global action for development worldwide, including in the field of Sport for Development and Peace.