13-Mar-2017: No candidate fielded for elections to the Commission on Legal Continental Shelf

India for the first time in two decades is not going to have a member in the U.N. scientific body that decides what portions of the seabed can be exclusively mined for natural resources such as oil, precious metals and minerals.

India’s current member to the 21-person body, called Commission on Legal Continental Shelf (CLCS) and part of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), told India’s decision not to field a candidate for the upcoming election.

According to officials of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), the date to send a nomination lapsed on March 7. Multiple sources said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), which formally nominates Indian candidates, chose to nominate a person to another U.N. body, called the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

The MoES is the nodal Ministry of the Government for the Law of the Sea-related issues. However, the MEA went on to nominate a retired Joint Secretary-level officer for ITLOS membership, whereas the MoES candidate for CLCS was not agreed to by the MEA. Despite several representations by the MoES Secretary at various levels, the issue was not addressed.

The CLCS has a five-year tenure and elections are due in June for the 2017-2022 term. Not having an Indian in this 21-member group would mean that China and Pakistan would likely grab two of the five seats allotted to the so-called Asia-Pacific group.

Apart from signalling prestige, a membership of the commission allows India to gauge the scientific strength of claims by countries to parts of the seabed that, like territorial waters, are often hard to demarcate. Such information is privy only to participants. India has had disputes with several neighbours — Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka — over how the continental shelf (the seabed under the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal) can be fairly distributed.

India has huge interest in CLCS and applied for extending the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) up to 350 nautical miles from the existing 200 nautical miles. India’s submission to CLCS will likely come up for scrutiny later this year, and Sri Lanka, which has claimed a larger area than India, will be examined first. India’s application number is 48, while Sri Lanka’s is 43.

Fielding candidates for ITLOS and CLCS would require India’s Permanent Commission to The United Nations, which coordinates the process, to canvass for votes for both positions and could reduce future “diplomatic leverage,”. “It’s also one of those rare occasions when there’s been a vacancy in both ITLOS and CLCS and maybe the MEA deems ITLOS more important.

In CLCS, the sitting members from the Asia-Pacific region are China, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Malaysia and India, and all countries, except India, are sending candidates for both posts.

While ITLOS is a judge position and the appointee is paid annual wages, there is no remuneration for the sitting CLCS member.

India became a signatory to the UNCLOS in 1982 and has had continuous representation in CLCS, ITLOS and the International Seabed Authority (ISA) since their inception in 1997, 1996 and 1994 respectively.