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MARTINA FILIPPIOVÁ
CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ
Before the meeting of the working groups
3
and a parallel session of the Committee
on Environmental Protection (CEP),
4
a request of Venezuela for consultative status
was subject to discussion of the Consultative Parties. By a diplomatic note dated
22 March 2016 Venezuela had formally submitted a request for consultative status
to the depositary of the Antarctic Treaty, the Government of the United States. The
request accompanied by supporting documents had been sent to the Consultative
Parties before the Meeting. At the Meeting Venezuela formally presented its request
and stated that it was a Contracting Party since 1999 and since 2008 had been
conducting scientific activities in Antarctica.
While Japan and Ecuador supported the request of Venezuela, most Latin
American States were of the opinion that the supporting documents needed more
elaboration regarding the scientific activities, especially the future plans for scientific
research, and offered their assistance in this respect. The Meeting took the latter’s
position and encouraged Venezuela to continue working on its plans for obtaining
consultative status. However, the Meeting acknowledged that a revision of existing
procedure for attaining consultative status was needed and established Intersessional
Contact Group (ICG) for such review.
5
The depositaries of Treaties of the Antarctic Treaty System
6
informed the Meeting
about new accessions. Having noted that Island deposited its instrument of accession
to the Antarctic Treaty and thus increased the number of Contracting Parties to 53,
no new accession to the other Treaties of the system had taken place.
Last year, the Policy, Legal and Institutional Working Group questioned the
eight day format of the ATCM and its parallel sessions with the CEP. This year this
working group followed up on the last year decision of the Meeting that since 2017
a CEP would start one day before the ATCM. One of the main reasons for this
rescheduling of the Meeting was that some issues were subject to discussion of both
3
The ATCM has a plenary sessions and meeting of working groups. It was agreed that on the preceding
ATCM the number of working groups and preliminary agenda items would be decided. This year there
were three working groups. The first one was Policy, Legal and Institutional Working Group, the second
one was Operations, Science and Tourism, the third one was a working group for the 25
th
anniversary
of the Protocol on Environmental Protection.
4
The CEP is a meeting of Contracting Parties of the Madrid Protocol, experts and observers. It usually
takes places the first week of the ATCM and its sessions are at the same time as sessions of the ATCM
working groups. The CEP was established by Article 11 of the Madrid Protocol and had a first meeting
in 1998.
5
The procedure for obtaining consultative status is described particularly in Decision 4 (2005) and in
the guidelines on notification with respect to consultative status. The Antarctic Treaty in its Article IX,
para. 2 requires that
“a Contracting Party demonstrates its interest in Antarctica by conducting substantial
scientific research activity there, such as the establishment of a scientific station or the despatch of a scientific
expedition.”
6
Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, Convention on the Conservation
of Antarctic Seals, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels.