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Adoption by the General Assembly of its annual resolutions on Oceans and the Law of the Sea and on Sustainable Fisheries

Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - 14:30

 

 

 

NEW YORK, 05 December – Ambassador Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr., Permanent Representative to the United Nations, affirms that sustainable ocean management consistent with the global agenda to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources is necessary for human survival, particularly for the Philippines, an archipelagic country. At the adoption by the General Assembly of its annual resolutions on Oceans and the Law of the Sea and on Sustainable Fisheries, Ambassador Locsin reiterated the Philippines’ commitment in the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and to its obligation under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to help ensure global and regional peace in the fair and sustainable use of the oceans: “Our … greedy exhaustion of the oceans’ resources for immediate gain … has resulted not only in ever smaller fisheries catch and in the worsening illicit trafficking in protected species, but also in ocean acidification, coral bleaching, sea-level rise, and coastal flooding, and deadlier tropical cyclones brought on by ocean warming.” He emphasized that, “UNCLOS represents a delicate balance of the rights and obligations of all States Parties to what none of them can claim as exclusively its own for any use they choose … the Philippines upholds the primacy of international law as the only foundation of a rules-based and therefore enduring regional and international order.” (Photo: UN Photo Library)