On 14 June 2017, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. Miguel de Serpa Soares, delivered opening remarks and moderated a side event on the “Choice of procedure under article 287 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”, organized by the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, on the margins of the twenty-seventh Meeting of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The purpose of the side event was to assist in the implementation of paragraph 58 of resolution 71/257 on “Oceans and the law of the sea”, in which the General Assembly encouraged States Parties to the Convention that have not yet done so to consider making a written declaration, choosing from the means set out in article 287 of the Convention for the settlement of disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention and the Part XI Agreement, bearing in mind the comprehensive character of the dispute settlement mechanism provided for in Part XV of the Convention.

The side event featured presentations on the mechanisms for the settlement of disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention referred to in article 287 by H.E. Judge Ronny Abraham, President of the International Court of Justice, Mr. Philippe Gautier, Registrar of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and Mr. Dirk Pulkowski, Senior Legal Counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Mr. Santiago Villalpando, Chief of the Treaty Section, United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, provided information on the role of the Secretary-General of the United Nations as depositary of multilateral treaties in relation to declarations under article 287 of the Convention.

In his introduction, the United Nations Legal Counsel recalled that the Convention’s provision for compulsory procedures for the settlement of disputes entailing binding decisions was one of its distinct features, and provided an overview of the alternative means of dispute settlement from which States Parties can choose in accordance with article 287.

The panel presentations will be made available on the website of the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, at http://www.un.org/depts/los/.