On 27th June 2018, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. Miguel de Serpa Soares, met with the 17 Fellows participating in this years' United Nations – The Nippon Foundation Fellowship Programme, the United Nations - The Nippon Foundation Critical Needs Programme and the Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe Memorial Fellowship. The meeting, which took place at the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, provided an opportunity for the Fellows to interact with the Legal Counsel, to share their experiences during their time at the UN headquarters and to discuss their ongoing research projects.

In his remarks to the Fellows, Mr. Serpa Soares congratulated the Fellows for taking full advantage of the expertise made available to them to further their knowledge and understanding of ocean affairs and the law of the sea, as well as the work of the United Nations in this field. The Legal Counsel reminded the Fellows of the need for them to bring the knowledge and skills they have acquired during their Fellowship to bear on ocean governance in their home countries and regions. The Legal Counsel also used the occasion to thank the Nippon Foundation for its commitment and continuous support to the capacity-building programmes of the Office of Legal Affairs on ocean affairs and the law of the sea.

The Fellows expressed their gratitude to the United Nations and to the Nippon Foundation for the opportunity to gain an in-depth and multidisciplinary understanding of the legal and institutional framework, the policy issues and various United Nations multilateral processes relating to oceans and the law of the sea. The Fellows also appreciated the opportunity to observe first-hand the work of the United Nations, for example the organizational meeting of the Intergovernmental Conference 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, and other related intergovernmental meetings such as the Meetings of State Parties to UNCLOS and the Informal Consultative Process on UNCLOS.

The Legal Counsel concluded the meeting by wishing the Fellows who were about to proceed to their academic Host Institution placement a productive second phase of the Programme.