Originally from Natural Resources and the Law of the Sea: Exploration, Allocation, Exploitation of Natural Resources in Areas under National Jurisdiction and Beyond - International Law Institute Series on International Law, Arbitration and Practice, Volume 2

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INTRODUCTION TO PANEL 3

MR. LAIRD: Well, thank you, everyone. Now we will have the third and final panel today. It’s titled “Natural Resources and Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction.”

And I have the pleasure of introducing the moderator for our third panel, Judge Tomas Heidar. He is a Judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the Director of the Law of the Sea Institute of Iceland. Before becoming a Judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in October 2014, Tomas Heidar served as the Legal Adviser of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iceland for almost twenty years and was awarded the title of Ambassador in 2014. He was responsible for all matters of public international law, including, in particular, treaties and the law of the sea. He represented Iceland regularly at meetings on oceans and the law of the sea at the United Nations in New York and other international fora. For example—and this is relevant to this panel—he participated in UN meetings on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction—the so-called “BBNJ Process”—from its start in 2004 until 2014. He was also in charge of a number of negotiations with neighboring countries on maritime delimitation and fisheries. He was Chairman of the National Commission on Continental Shelf Limits, was in charge of preparing the Submission of Iceland to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and was Head of Delegation at meetings with the Commission. 

It is a great pleasure to introduce Judge Heidar and turn over the moderation of our final panel. Welcome. 

JUDGE HEIDAR: Thank you very much for the introduction, Mr. Laird. And many thanks to the organizers for inviting me and trusting me with moderating this panel. 

As you know, the first two panels were focusing on national jurisdiction, but in this panel we will be focusing on the rest of the oceans, the areas beyond national jurisdiction, that is the high seas and the international seabed area—the Area. The high seas are, in terms of surface of the oceans, approximately sixty percent of the oceans, and in terms of volume the high seas are approximately ninety percent of the oceans. This gives some idea of the enormous scope of the areas we will be dealing with in this panel.