PROVISIONAL SUMMARY REPORT
2. ORGANIZATION OF THE SESSION 1 ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA
5 The Chair reminded that the Executive Council, acting as the Steering Committee for this Assembly session, examined the revised provisional agenda for the session and noted there was no request for supplementary items. The chair also reminded that the A. Bruun and N.K. Panikkar Memorial Lectures, 2015, which were previously included as part of the Assembly session, were organized during the Ocean Science Day that took place the day before the Assembly.
concise sessional reporting may limit description of background discussions.
7 The representatives of one Member State took the floor.
2.2 DESIGNATION OF THE RAPPORTEUR See Decision IOC-XXVIII, Dec. 2 II. hereafter.
2.3 ESTABLISHEMENT OF INTRASESSIONAL COMMITTEES AND WORKING GROUPS
8 Referring to the recommendations made by the Executive Council (EC- XLVIII/Dec.3.1 and 3.3) at its 48th session on this item, acting as the steering committee for the present session, the Chair reminded of the mandate of the three sessional committees, the open-ended composition thereof, and the working arrangements made for their meetings.
9 With reference to the recommendations of the Executive Council, the Chair proposed the establishment of four sessional working groups on: the International Indian Ocean Expedition 2 (IIOE-2); the review of GEBCO; the IOC Capacity-Building Strategy and the related Draft Resolution; and the Future of IOC. He then invited proposals for additional sessional working groups and received none.
2.4 INTRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTATION TIMETABLE AND MEMORIAL LECTURES
10 The Executive Secretary introduced this item. He reviewed briefly the list of working documents and reminded the Assembly that the report would be focused on decisions. Referring to IOC-XXVIII/Inf.1, the Executive Secretary reminded that draft decisions would be agreed to during the discussion of each agenda item. The Action Paper was intentionally drafted as a pre-report in order to streamline the reporting process during the session. Taking into account the feedback from Member States at sessions of IOC governing bodies since 2012, a summary of the discussion that led to the decision under each agenda item was to be drafted during the session and was to be submitted to Member States under item 12 for adoption as possible during the plenary session or alternatively by correspondence after the session. Dr Ryabinin invited delegates to consider the online evaluation questionnaire concerning governing body session working arrangements as early as possible and to complete it before the discussion on working arrangements in item 12. Member States that wished to have specific, particularly important, plenary interventions recorded, were invited to provide written records thereof in one of the four working languages of the Commission, to be annexed to the report, in their original language as an informational annex to this report. A template and a dedicated e-mail address (iocgovbody@unesco.org) was set up to this end.
11 With reference to the timetable for the session, the Executive Secretary informed about the interpretation arrangements during the session. Meetings of the Financial Committee benefitted from English/French interpretation. An inquiry about the wish of Member States to continue to provide interpretation during future meetings of this committee was added to the evaluation questionnaire for the
12 The Executive Secretary drew some conclusions on the Ocean Science Day that took place the day before the Assembly opening in the working languages of the commission. He acknowledged supports from Norway for the organization of the event and invited comments on this initiative of the Officers. He also mentioned for the record of this Assembly that the IOC Anton Bruun Memorial Lecture and N. K.
Panikkar Memorial Lecture 2015 were delivered during the Ocean Science Day respectively by Lora E. Fleming on “Oceans, Health and Wellbeing: the Next Frontier” and John Field on the “From the Indian Ocean to the World Ocean and back in 50 years”. Following their presentation Ms Fleming was awarded the IOC Anton Bruun medal and Mr John Field the IOC N.K. Panikkar Medal.
13 The Assembly noted that all documentation of the Session were not posted in a timely manner and encouraged the Secretariat to work harder to complete most documentation two months in advance of the Session as stated in Rule of Procedure 11.
14 The Assembly expressed great satisfaction with the Ocean Science Day, and applauded the quality of the presentations. The sense of the Assembly seemed to be to continue the activity in future sessions (see IOC-XXVIII, Dec.11.4).
15 The representatives of three Member States took the floor. The following Member State chose to provide records of their plenary intervention on this agenda item for the informational annex to the meeting report: Brazil, Malaysia.
16 The Assembly adopted Decision IOC-XXVIII,Dec.2 below.
The Assembly,
I. Agenda
Adopts the agenda and the timetable of work as set out in document IOC-XXVIII/1 Prov. Rev. and Add. Rev.
II. Rapporteur On a proposal of Argentina, seconded by Brazil,
Designates Mr Carlo Elisca S. Cerome of Haiti Rapporteur for its present session to assist the Chairperson and the Executive Secretary in the preparation of the draft provisional report of the Session;
III. Sessional Committees and Working Groups
Establishes the following sessional open-ended committees and four working groups and referred to them the following agenda items and responsibilities:
- Financial Committee (to examine the financial implications of draft decisions/resolutions, work plans of subsidiary bodies: under the chairmanship of Professor Peter M. Haugan (Norway) with the following Member States declaring their wish to participate: Australia, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Kenya, USA, Japan, Russian Federation, Malaysia, UK, Côte d’Ivoire, China, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cameroon, Greece, India, France, Turkey, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Korea, Thailand, Mauritius, Argentina, Denmark, Egypt. Ms Ksenia Yvinec provides the Secretariat support to the Financial Committee.
- Resolutions Committee (to report on all draft resolutions duly presented for
Ecuador. Julian Barbière provides the Secretariat support to the Resolutions Committee.
- Nominations Committee (to examine all proposals of candidates for the elections to the chair, vice-chairs and to the Executive Council at the present session, and to report on them –item 11.3): under the chairship of Javier Valladares (Argentina) with the following Member States declaring their wish to participate: Japan, USA, China, India, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Cuba, Egypt, Bulgaria, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, UK. Thorkild Aarup provides the Secretariat support to the Nominations Committee.
Establishes also:
On a proposal of the Executive Council acting as the steering committee for the present session:
- a sessional working group on International Indian Ocean Expedition 2 (IIOE-2) (5.3) under the chairship of Sateesh Shenoi (India) with the following Member States declaring their wish to participate: (to be completed in the final report). Nick D’Adamo provides the Secretariat support to the group.
- a sessional working group on the review of GEBCO (item 6.2) under the chairship of Craig McLean (USA) with the following Member States declaring their wish to participate: Argentina, Japan, France, Colombia, China, Brazil, Bulgaria, Portugal, Tunisia, Turkey, Canada, USA, Australia, Spain, Malaysia, Russian Federation, Tanzania, Ireland, Republic of Korea, UK, India, Monaco, IHO, GEBCO. Julian Barbière provides the Secretariat support to the group.
- a sessional working group on the IOC Capacity Building Strategy and Draft Resolution (9.1) under the chairship of Prof. Adoté Blim Blivi (Togo) with the following Member States declaring their wish to participate: Australia, USA, Japan, UK, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Malaysia, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia, Germany, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, China, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, France, India, Nigeria, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Korea, Thailand, Argentina, Tanzania. Peter Pissierssens provides the Secretariat support to the group.
- a sessional working group on the Future of IOC (item 4.) under the chairship of Peter Haugan (Norway). Ksenia Yvinec provides the Secretariat support to the group, with the following Member States declaring their wish to participate: Denmark, USA, Japan, UK, Senegal, Cuba, Spain, Russian Federation, Germany, Algeria, South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Ecuador, Malaysia, Morocco, Colombia, China, Chile, Canada, Brazil, Greece, France, Finland, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Turkey, Tunisia, Thailand, Republic of Korea, Egypt, Togo.
3. STATE OF THE IOC, ITS REGIONAL SUBSIDIARY BODIES