#ocean #biodiversity #BBNJ #ABNJ #UNCLOS
The organizational meeting for the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) was held at UN Headquarters in New York from 16-18 April 2018, under the mandate of UN General Assembly resolution 72/249 of 24 December 2017. In this resolution, the General Assembly agreed to convene an Intergovernmental Conference, under the auspices of the United Nations, to consider the recommendations of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), with a view to developing the instrument as soon as possible.
Important agenda items under discussion in this meeting included IGC-1 Provisional Agenda, IGC-1 Proposed Organization of Work, provisional rules of procedure of the conference, bureau, Process for the preparation of the zero draft of the instrument; in simple words, to get prepared for a good start of IGC1.
The IGC will meet for four sessions, with the first session to be convened from 4 to 17 September 2018. The second and third sessions will take place in 2019, and the fourth session in the first half of 2020.
For more details of this meeting please refer to UN meeting webpage and the ENB report.