JAMAICA: U. N to create its newest agency next week

KINGSTON, Nov 09 (IPS) - Representatives of the member countries of the United Nations will meet in Kingston next week (Nov 16-18) to start building the foundations of an institution to oversee the orderly exploitation of the international seabed.

It will be several years, however, before there is commercial exploitation of the billions of tonnes of metals which are lying on the international seabed, outside the 124-kilometre economic zone of any one country.

The Kingston meeting is intended to prepare for an equitable distribution of the seabed metals, following agreement between industrialised and developing countries that they represent "the common heritage of mankind."

The conference is the first of the International Seabed Authority, (ISA) the newest specialised agency of the U.N. The authority, which will be located in Jamaica, will supervise all aspects of the commercial exploitation of the international seabed.

"This is a moment of some special significance in the life of the United Nations," said a senior U.N. official closely associated with the new agency, but who requested anonymity.

"It is not very often that the U.N. spreads itself to cover such a far-reaching portfolio of major significance to all the countries of the world. Yet, ironically, the International Seabed Authority embodies what the U.N. is all about, because the Authority will be dealing with a matter which is of fundamental importance to all the world's peoples.

The negotiations which preceded the Kingston meeting have been protracted and bitter. Developing countries, without the technology and money to exploit the mineral riches of the international seabed, feared that all would be taken by multinational companies based in the industrialised world.

Industrialised countries said they would not be party to any organisation which allowed governments significant control over the exploitation of the minerals on the international seabed.

The arguments raged for 11 years in sessions of Preparatory Commission of the Seabed Authority held in Kingston and New York, until earlier this year when there was consensus.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service