2. OCEANS: Want to file a U.N. seabed claim? Get in line (Greenwire, 04/23/2008)

Nathanial Gronewold, Greenwire reporter

UNITED NATIONS -- A U.N. advisory body charged with certifying national claims to seabed territory -- what many are calling the last great land grab -- is warning governments that they might not be able to handle an expected flood of new applications prompted by a looming treaty deadline and melting polar ice.

"At the moment we're managing because they are still just trickling in at two or three per year," said Peter Crocker, an Irish member of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. But Crocker and his colleagues say they are bracing for an overwhelming "big wave of submissions."

Established under the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, the commission consists of 21 geologists and geographers who review scientific data behind national claims and issue "recommendations" that serve as de facto seals of approval to such claims. The stakes are high.

A nod from the commission frees a government to exclusively tap the ocean bottom for hydrocarbons and minerals on what it claims as its extended continental shelf. Commission approval of a pending Russian request for Arctic territory, for instance, would free Moscow to stake control over rich fields of oil and natural gas likely containing billions of barrels of oil equivalent.

Using hydrographic data and analysis equipment at two high-tech labs set up by the United Nations, with a third lab on the way, commission members review the history of seabed formations, sediment thickness and other qualifiers to find the slope and rise of a "continental shelf."

"The resources are quite enough," said Yuri Kazmin, a Russian national on the commission. "The time is the issue. And besides the time, it is, I will say, the financial position of the commissioners."

The United Nations does not pay the commissioners. Many have full-time jobs in their own countries or are retired. Crocker, for example, has an Irish government salary, while Russia pays for Kazmin's flights, hotel and per diem. Kazim said he is not paid by his company for his U.N. work.

Crocker and others have proposed that the commission be made a semipermanent U.N. office, with each member getting his salary paid from the general budget. "We really need," Crocker said, "to be put on a different and secure financial footing."

So far, it has been a no-go. But until recently, working on the commission posed little problem for members. After all, there have been merely nine claims submitted since 2001.

But the pace is going to change dramatically. Last year, when the United Nations asked parties to the Law of the Sea convention how many of them intended to apply for extended continental shelf territory, 48 nations stepped up and said they would.

Many of those applications are expected in the next three years. That is because Law of the Sea members, most of which ratified the convention in the mid-1990s, have 10 years to apply after they ratify the treaty.

Since it takes about two years for the commission to review a claim and issue a recommendation, panel members are concerned about the 40 or so that they believe are on the way.

"We're all part-timers," Crocker said in an interview. "At the moment we are spending 10 to 12 weeks in New York, so it's already three months."

'A bit horrified'

When they review claims, the commission's 21 members divide themselves into three subcommissions of seven, careful to make sure that no member is a national of the applying country or a national of a state bordering the applicant.

The subcommissions take, on average, two years to review a claim and issue findings, which are then generally adopted by the full commission.

Each application is handled in the order in which it is received and reviewed case-by-case.

Mexico became the latest applicant when it requested a small section of the Gulf of Mexico about 200 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas. Most recently, Brazil's application for a big swath of Atlantic Ocean territory was approved, freeing it to explore potentially rich oil and natural gas reserves in deepwater fields.

As claims pile up, the typical two-year waiting period will likely become much longer, perhaps even decades, commission members warn.

But commissioners' warnings have been met by silence at the United Nations. And there has been a lack of any clear direction from Law of the Sea member states. The parties in their last general report said only that "the matter would continue to be addressed."

Crocker believes the issue may come to a head as applications pile up.

"I made a PowerPoint projection at last year's states parties meeting showing the projected growth in the number of submissions and how many we are cycling through at the moment, and the projections went out to, I think, 2035 when we would finish our work," Crocker said. "So they were probably a bit horrified by that."

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