Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu will participate on Tuesday, as the keynote speaker in the open meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) called „Threats to International Peace and Security: Sea-Level Rise – Implications for International Peace and Security”, according to a release of the Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) sent to Agerpres.

The head of the Romanian diplomacy will present the implications of the rise in sea and ocean levels over international peace and security, at the invitation extended by the Maltese Presidency of the UN Security Council (SC), both as minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania and as co-chair of the Study Group of the UN International Law Commission (ILC) regarding the sea-level rise in relation to international law.

The Foreign Affairs minister will participate in this event alongside UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the UN General Assembly President Csaba Korosi. The meeting will be chaired by Malta’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs and Trade Ian Borg, as the President of the UN SC.

Within the meeting there will be debated the risks for international peace and security generated by the rise in sea and ocean levels, a phenomenon which is a direct consequence of climate change and there will be explored the ways in which the Security Council can address these risks within the framework of the global security architecture.

Romania’s presence at the UN Security Council meeting „strengthens our country’s efforts to promote an efficient multilateralism and international order based on norms, such as Romania’s role as an actor involved in managing the pressing global issues, including the consequences of climate change over peace and security which take an important place,” the MAE release shows.

The rise in sea and ocean levels has direct physical consequences over the coasts of the affected states and, therefore, over the baselines from which, according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, maritime areas are measured – the territorial sea, the contiguous area, the exclusive economic area, as well as over the access to the resources located in these areas; the loss of these resources increases the risk of conflicts between states, the MAE shows. Moreover, as an effect of this phenomenon, because of the deterioration of living conditions, population movements and forced migration might occur. Last but not least, the rise in the level of seas and oceans leads to the loss of territory, either partially or totally (in the case of island states), which can lead to the loss of statehood. Therefore, the rise in the level of seas and oceans is a phenomenon that poses existential problems for many states, the quoted release mentioned.

As member of the International Law Commission of the UN, Bogdan Aurescu proposed, ever since 2018, together with other four members of the ILC, that the topic of sea and ocean level rise be included in relation to the international law on the working agenda of the ILC, as a result of the increased interest on behalf of the affected UN member states (approximately 140 states directly or indirectly affected by this phenomenon, both island states and with low coastal regions – especially developing states, but not only, thus, over two thirds of the UN member states) to find solutions based on international law to protect their rights.

Agerpres