Seychelles claims second area beyond EEZ limit
07.09.2009
Seychelles has made a second claim for extended continental shelf seabed beyond its 200- mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) limit.
On Monday, the country formally presented a submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UN-CLCS) for an area of 22,143 square kilometres in the Northern Plateau region 350 nautical miles north-west of Mahe.
Seychelles formally presented its first claim, a joint submission with Mauritius in the Mascarene Plateau region, to the commission in New York on March 26 this year.
The present claim was developed unilaterally by Seychelles’ technical team on maritime boundary delimitation, with the help of advisers sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation.
The submission has been developed in compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – a treaty that Seychelles signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in December 1982 and ratified in 1991 – and also in accordance with the scientific and technical guidelines of the UN-CLCS and its rules of procedure.
It has been made within the time limit specified in this treaty, as failure to lodge a submission would have meant losing an extended continental shelf in this area and the potential to exploit resources, living or non-living.
Jurisdiction over an extended continental shelf is important for a country to be entitled to explore and exploit resources and also to preserve the environment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement yesterday.
The Seychellois delegation in New York was led by Ambassador Ronny Jumeau, our permanent representative to the UN, and the technical team was made up of Raymond Chang-Tave, special adviser on international boundaries at the Ministry of National Development; Patrick Joseph, geophysicist and exploration manager for Sepec Exploration; Patrick Samson, senior geologist for Sepec Exploration; and Francis Coeur de Lion, director general (GIS and IT) at the Ministry of National Development.