Statement
AOSIS Intervention on Legal Issues in the Sea Level Rise Declaration
Delivered by HE Fred Sarufa
Key Points
- AOSIS emphasizes legal stability of maritime zones and statehood despite sea level rise.
- The Declaration’s legal paragraphs reflect existing international law, not new legal rules.
- Current compromise text is AOSIS’s minimum acceptable position to ensure legal certainty for vulnerable states.
- The Declaration’s legal paragraphs reflect existing international law, not new legal rules.
- Current compromise text is AOSIS’s minimum acceptable position to ensure legal certainty for vulnerable states.
- I have the honour to speak on behalf of the 37 member states of the Alliance of Small Island States, and we thank you for your stewardship of this process. I would like to address the legal dimensions of this Declaration--the paragraphs concerning the stability of maritime zone and the continuity of statehood. For our members, these paragraphs are some of the most critical in the Declaration and they provide clear actions for us to confront sea level rise.
- We wish to be clear about what the legal paragraphs do and do not do. They do not invent new law. They reflect the law as it has been created by states through our collective practice and opinio juris, which was then confirmed by the International Law Commission and the International Court of Justice, and it rests on the practice and the legal conviction of States. The stability of maritime zones once established; the continuity of statehood notwithstanding sea level rise; the continuity of membership of the United Nations, are not aspirations we are asking this Declaration to create.
- We have approached these paragraphs in a spirit of compromise. The text now before us in Rev- 2 is not the text AOSIS would have written. It is framed in measured terms; and it already reflects significant concessions on our part. In candour, it represents the minimum our members can accept. We have made hard political decisions to leave the wider arguments to other forums, and to focus here on responding to sea level rise. This text pushes us to our absolute limits.
- We have heard the concerns that the language is too strong, and that the section should be streamlined. With respect, the strength of these paragraphs is not excess; we think that it is fidelity to the law. To hollow out the legal dimensions would be to convene a High-Level Meeting on sea level rise that declines to address the questions sea level rise actually poses.
- AOSIS stands ready to work with you and with all delegations to finalise this section. We will engage constructively on genuine bridging proposals that respect our fundamental positions. We have led on these questions for a generation, and we ask the membership to stand with us now, so that this Declaration affirms legal certainty for those most impacted by sea level rise. I thank you.
- I thank you.