The Bahamas and the Kingdom of Denmark host Capacity Building Workshop on Climate Change
14th May, 2024
The Commonwealth of The Bahamas together with the Kingdom of Denmark and the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources (ANCORS), hosted an in-person capacity-building workshop under the theme: Baselines, Limits and Boundaries in a Changing Ocean Delivering Certainty and Stability from 7 May – 9 May 2024.
Attendees were governmental representatives from Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) including Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominican Republic, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago working in relevant areas.
The workshop, the first of its kind, examined the legal and technical aspects arising from climate change-related impacts on maritime claims and the delimitation of maritime boundaries. Against the threat of this loss posed by sea-level rise, participants sought to explore the implications under the United National Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and share knowledge and practical advice on how to identify the locations of baselines along the coast using the latest technology. Experts emphasized the importance of delineating the outer limits of unsettled maritime claims and delimitation of maritime boundaries to secure existing maritime entitlements consistent with international law.
A wide range of experts on SIDS gave presentations at the workshop – including representatives from The Bahamas Department of Protection and Planning, Dalhousie University, George Washington University Law School, the United Nations Division for Oceans and Law of the Sea, the University of the Faroe Islands, the University of Wollongong, the University of Copenhagen, the United States Department of State, New York University, and others.