UN Oceans

Participation

In order to fulfil its mandate on ensuring United Nations system coherence on issues related to ocean affairs and the law of the sea, participation in UN-Oceans is open to United Nations system organizations with competence in activities related to ocean and coastal areas and the International Seabed Authority.

The Legal Counsel/Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea will be the focal point of UN-Oceans. In that capacity, it will:

(a)    Convene  the  meetings  of  UN-Oceans  and  organize  those  meetings, including by preparing and disseminating meeting minutes, reports and background documents;

(b)    Facilitate communication among UN-Oceans participants;

(c)    Maintain and update information about UN-Oceans activities, make this information available to UN-Oceans participants and United Nations Member States and make it publicly available through the UN-Oceans website (www.unoceans.org);

(d)   Represent UN-Oceans at relevant meetings, including those under the General Assembly and those of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination and its High-level Committee on Programmes.

UN-Oceans will hold at least one face-to-face meeting per year, supplemented as needed by virtual (teleconference, videoconference) meetings.

As far as practicable, UN-Oceans will hold its face-to-face meetings at United Nations  Headquarters, preferably in  conjunction with  the  United  Nations  Open- ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea.

Each meeting will be conducted by a Chair, elected for that meeting among UN-Oceans participants present at the meeting. The Chair of a given UN-Oceans meeting cannot be elected to chair the immediately subsequent meeting.

UN-Oceans  will  endeavour  to  make  maximum  use  of  electronic communication and information manage ment and will conduct intersessional work by electronic means such as teleconferences and videoconferences.

UN-Oceans will work on the basis of consensus.

UN-Water and UN-Energy may participate in UN-Oceans meetings as invited observers, as appropriate and necessary.

UN-Oceans will regularly prepare a work programme allowing it to effectively coordinate the response of its participating organizations to the mandates approved by their governing bodies.

In support of its mandate and work, UN-Oceans may set up time-bound ad hoc assignments to facilitate coordination on specific issues, open to all participating organizations of UN-Oceans.

To ensure transparency and accountability:

(a)    The Secretary-General will report annually on the activities and work programmes of UN-Oceans through his report to the General Assembly on developments and issues relating to ocean affairs and the law of the sea;

(b)    UN-Oceans, upon request from the General Assembly, will also report to
Member States in the context of the meetings of the Informal Consultative Process;

(c)   Upon request from the General Assembly, feedback and consultation sessions with UN-Oceans may be held in the context of the meetings of the Informal Consultative Process or at any other time deemed necessary by Member States;

(d)    UN-Oceans  will  also  annually  brief  the  High-Level  Committee  on
Programmes on its activities and work programmes;

(e)    UN-Oceans will systematically post all of its meeting reports, assignment reports, annual reports to the Informal Consultative Process, and other relevant documents on the UN-Oceans website (www.unoceans.org).